It all hit Daniel when he got back to Pinion's Point. They did at least make it to the compound, but once there it was impossible to avoid any further as it'd been occupied. Hunter spotted them before Daniel, and while that was a comforting reminder of the past, it was also a sign of how things had changed. Identify Creature was solely on his side of the bond now. Some sacrifices had to be made when reforging it.

Marking absolutely everything within kilometers had been their strongest synergy starting out. Might and Magic's combo attack heaven just barely made Daniel feel better about losing that, and they weren't without cheats. Blood Union counted what Keen Senses did to Hunter as a physical effect, meaning it could be passed in part or whole to Daniel.

Are you feeling ok? Daniel asked as he tried to use the borrowed empowered senses to tag whoever it was squatting in his house on the final approach. The way the new bond worked, whatever was shared was temporarily lost to the original person. It was an annoying limit, but in trade there really wasn't one on the number or type of physical effects that could be sent.

Less strange than two legs, Hunter remarked, indeed in hybrid form as flight items had been a luxury and he couldn't spare two pairs of boots. No worse than stopping time. It is fine. He sounded in no mood to complain when Alex was bundled up atop Lograve's ice construct.

A few auras flickered to life as he picked up enough to examine them, and these were still transmitted to Hunter. The exact interaction causing this was still unknown as their time had been limited when questioning the god machine, but it had something to do with their third bond benefit, Universal Link, which maintained the telepathic, empathic, and mind-swapping connections. All three had also received another boost. For one thing, as long as Daniel and Hunter were in the same region, they could contact each other regardless of where they were.

Ok, I got Janice so that's good, what looks like some of the regular hunters. Can't identify that guy and… her? The first surprise, but not the one that would shake him the most, came as a familiar name was listed among the auras below. She was technically too high level for him to identify, but he'd met the avianoid more than enough times to know her name and class. Crap, is Zolyra going to get held up because they can't find her? That's assuming she comes here at all.

Missed a few, Hunter pointed out, giving him the general locations of a few more around the structures to aid in retrieving the rest. It wasn't enough to allow Daniel to blanket the horizon in auras as Hunter had been able to, but it was workable, and what they'd gained was worth it. New house?

That whole section's ours. Daniel would have been proud if there hadn't been two dozen hunters, some level 3 or higher, camping out in the main courtyard framed by three rectangular structures with their own interior spaces open to the sky. The presence of Janice, and the other he recognized especially, were the only reason he didn't have Lograve start a hailstorm to cover their retreat. Hunter, no matter what, protect Alex.

With my life. He looked sideways and saw the ringcat was serious. The gesture was made slightly less impactful by the fact that they could now use Universal Link to harbor the soul of the other as Willow had done with Tlara's. It might even allow them to repeat the methods used to bring her and Hunter back to life. Daniel was in no way willing to test that.

Switching to the general telepathic channel, Daniel reached out to his battle squad. I don't know who most of those people are. Soraso's maybe.

By now, they had been noticed, and those in the center of the courtyard were visible, the reverse being true. No weapons were raised, which was nice. That's the captain of Raven's Call, Willow thought. He's the Knight you fought after that power got triggered. Esket Marrow.

Aw Crest. I think I see the rest of my team down there, too. Daniel blinked, and only then remembered that all this time Shuni had been a loaner Rogue from an established team. She wasn't supposed to have been working with them at all on the last ruins run, regardless of whether or not her help had been crucial to their survival.

Lograve, keep up off the ground. I'm going down there. Everyone else stay up. I can't rule out that this is an ambush.

That's exactly why you shouldn't go down there alone, the Arcanist replied, adding in some sarcasm to try and lighten the mood. And when exactly have I given you the impression you can order me around? Evalyn should have you twisted around her fingers by now.

That made him and the Bard exchange uncertain looks. Daniel had taken command of Wingcraft, but he'd readily admit to having made several near catastrophic mistakes. Bond or not, Evalyn could do a better job, but neither knew what the past few months had changed. It's fine. I don't know what Soraso's game is but it's not going to lead to an immediate execution. He knows he needs me to control the ruins.

Well… you have a point. I still refuse to believe he has anything to do with those elites in there either. Either way, it shouldn't be you going down there alone. Hunter, back me up here.

Hunter's eyes flicked to Alex and a moment of mutual understanding so deep occurred that Daniel checked to make sure Empathic Link was still on its low intensity setting. Then he entered a dive, no one stopping or joining him. Some here had seen what he was capable of, what the world was like now, and knew they would have time to react if there was a betrayal. The others were still adjusting to a new world and a new Artificer.

Landing in the middle of his courtyard, Daniel planted one palm on the stone as he glared at the captain he now vaguely remembered. Along his arms, the wings that stabilized his flight crawled toward his back as they returned to their resting position. The boots on his feet still allowed for upward flight in the worst case. Because of how wing-based Threst's society was, he wasn't sure if the Knight would assume him flightless or not since his setup was a bit counter-intuitive.

The leader of Raven's Call, and the defensive efforts in Pinion's Point in general, took immediate command of the situation. "Captain Daniel Brant, you are under arrest for defying the order of the Regent and entering restricted territory. I have been asked to assure you that the Regent believes this to be due to a misunderstanding and that your companions are not included in the warrant. Still, someone must take responsibility, and you are their leader."

I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding, Daniel thought sarcastically, And not that Soraso's panicking because the mind control power he put on me failed. Standing, Daniel considered how he should reply. He honestly thought his group could win against this one as long as those who'd been sent to Eido hadn't gotten too rusty with their powers suppressed. With Tak and Evalyn having been suspended in their strongest buffing powers, their control over them might have improved. But he had to remember that watching this tableau was his sister, sitting above on-

"Get the fuck off my lawn!" She had suffered enough. She didn't deserve this, to see a megalomaniac's toadies trot him away the second they reached civilization.

There'd clearly been a strategizing session because Esket's head turned to the one Daniel hadn't expected to see here. The dark green feathers of the Hand Cleric Quala ruffled as she held up a calming hand. "Daniel, please, you need to listen to us. We talked about your bond, remember? The effects it was having on you? I'm worried they've progressed. Soraso said it sounded as though you were in extreme pain before you left and there was nothing here that could have physically caused it."

There's no way she's in his pocket. Quala, along with the draconoid Commander Zolyra, were two he was absolutely positive about. She had Iron Mind, a potent mental defensive power, while Zolyra's level was too high for Soraso to affect. Quala being corrupt through other means was also impossible. Wait, has she really not- "Look." Daniel pointed to the sky, and for the first time a few of the people there counted the number that had come back with him.

The Cleric gave a small gasp as she realized who the person wearing Daniel's hybrid form was, but her eyes stuck on his sister. They'd had plenty of opportunities to talk about things that had been troubling him, separation from his family chief among them. She'd seen his family photo too. "The bond is gone, remade. I'm whole. If Soraso wants to know what I found in the ruins that let me bring someone back to life without a body, he's going to have to come here himself and ask me."

That swung the attention back to him. The means the world had to revive the dead was not only limited to having an intact enough body. Everyone with the Resurrection power had lost it when it reverted to the Astral domain at the start of the Collapse. Who hadn't lost someone at this point? Granted, Daniel was lying through his teeth to manipulate them, but fair was fair.

Esket definitely appreciated the importance of what he'd said. "The world does not balance on your demands. Favored by the gods or not, you are not one of them. There is law and order, and if that is not enough to sway you, power behind the regency."

A very easy comeback was asking about the legality of what Soraso had done, but despite the fact that there were powers in this world to detect lies and truth, his encounter with Kahvin had proved those that had them could be bought. "You want to lose people fighting me, go for it," Daniel nodded his head upward. "I've got backup, and you're not going to fight for them, are you Quala?"

"We shouldn't be fighting at all!" The Cleric exclaimed, roused from her thoughts by his words. "Captain, this situation is not what I expected."

"The law is the law, and he has defied it." Esket narrowed his eyes at Hunter. "Who's to say we haven't uncovered Spiritualists hiding among us. There's been enough done to warrant questions at the least. I've yet to hear a good explanation for that monstrous mimicry of our noble form." Spinner's face drooped at his insult.

"Spiritualist? Who stopped them from destroying the Spires of Aughal?" Daniel's hands balled up into fists. "Who stepped in when monsters appeared on the streets of Aurus for the first time? Who warned you," he said with more force behind that word, directed at the Captain, "That Pinion's Point was under attack? We stopped the one here because I bought you time, and I still have the scars from that. How do we know you aren't a traitor?"

It was true that Esket's reliance on protocol would have probably led to the loss of those taken during the horde leader assaults. Other towns hadn't had Daniel to distract the oncoming storm of monsters, only leaders who couldn't believe an attack of that magnitude could ever hit a settled area. That most in the square had friends or family that had been taken wasn't lost to the avianoid Knight as he felt the shift in the air around him.

This is Fate Silora of Threst, um, oh my. The voice of the shavi came to Daniel out of nowhere, which was how he was used to hearing from her. Other people registered the voice by the way she was shifting, making him worry about what Soraso was about to say through her. There was a pause of about a minute as the tension grew. I am currently relaying a message on behalf of Commander Zolyra Rosescale, to follow. Got it that time. Wait, no, that wasn't- 'Captain Esket Marrow, stand down. That is a direct order. I am personally departing for Pinion's Point today. If I find out you have disobeyed an order, then I promise your fate will be worse than the Artificer's.' Message ends. Um, Commander, I can't exactly take all of this with me. Oh no, I'm still-

After the nervous shavi's words faded, the Captain was thrown into a quandary. For one, it could've been anyone forcing Silora to say that. She was level 5, but her level disparity to physical attributes was so high that she might have been weaker than a normal person. Then there were the conflicting orders to consider if you did take it at face value.

Ultimately, Esket couldn't imagine someone being that brazen. He still believed in the system, which wasn't a bad thing most of the time. They needed people who believed in the system with the monsters contesting the Octyrrum, though those less prejudiced against chimeric spiders would be preferred. There was just someone untrustworthy at the top corrupting that virtue. "Move out." And that was that. Some still stayed, besides Janice and Quala there was a collection of four level 2 hunters looking at Shuni. That one of them was named 'Dakalos', something she'd let slip on their first meeting, told him all he needed to know.

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Normally something he'd be interested in dealing with, but Shuni would have to face the music herself. Lograve, bring Alex down to the central house. I'm grabbing Quala.

…impressive performance, was Lograve's reply, despite that being a mathematically false statement.

"Sorry I couldn't keep them back, Daniel," Janice replied as he walked over to those two. "Technically, that's my boss, and Quala had a good reason."

"You're good. We're all good." His voice didn't carry the same conviction as before to stop them from seeing the lie within. He turned to Quala. "There is so much to tell you, but someone needs your help first."

Her eyes showed exactly the kind of unhesitant compassion he knew he'd see. "I understand. Tell me what I need to know on the way."

"Hey, uh," Janice awkwardly broke from her professional demeanor, which was distinct from the formal one of Threst, as they started walking away. "Something showed up in your room yesterday. I don't think it's bad, but it's strange. Nothing you need to look at now."

Well that's ominous. Was Cloak lurking around, here for the same reasons Quala had come? Hunter was keeping an ear out but hadn't detected the god yet, so it was unlikely. "Alex, she…" There was too much to explain to give full context. Chris' sin would have to wait to be spoken of at a later time. "Something happened in the ruins. The others were sent to Eido, which is on my world now. Most people can pass through fine when Lograve opens a portal, but Alex is stuck here. Maybe… maybe permanently."

"Eido wasn't destroyed!?" Quala exclaimed with a sonorous whisper, before the clinician took over. "Later. I will need to hear everything, but later." Lograve's ice glider touched down on the courtyard floor, Sigron and Hunter still performing body guard duty as she was ushered inside. "You've spoken of her, but I have only that to base my assessment on," she cautioned. "She is also the child of another world."

"You did a good job with this one," Daniel pointed out. "I trust you." Seeing she now had a task significantly more difficult than the one she'd anticipated, Quala moved to follow Alex into the house. Stepping in quickly behind her, he called out, "Wait!" The procession paused, and with an uncertainty for him in her eyes that was beginning to become consistent, Alex turned around. "Alex, this is Quala. She's someone you should talk to, you can trust her with anything. She already knows about Earth. And, and…" He grasped for the words, trying and failing to find the perfect ones. Instead, he said what was true. "I love you. Nothing will ever change that."

Then she was gone. He knew it had to be Quala alone in the room with her despite how isolating that might seem. Alex wasn't fragile, she'd just taken a hit that had knocked him flat. He knew from experience the Cleric could endear herself to the lost, though he was unsure where his sister would be afterward. Not home.

It was all happening at once, and the hardest hit Daniel was going to take today was yet to come. "Hey," Evalyn said softly, stepping into the foyer. "You've… done well for yourself. Captain Brant."

"I nearly got myself and the team killed several times." There were reasons, excuses, external influences that all didn't matter. "I'm getting the Commander to put you back in charge as soon as she gets here. Captain Lasial sounds better anyway."

"You needed to almost die several times to figure that out?" She tried to match the humor, but neither was feeling it. "I wasn't there for some of the conversation, but I heard enough. You have a god following you around?"

"He was. We had a disagreement," Daniel sighed. "I still think he handled things poorly, but I'm willing to reach out and try to start over. For the greater good, if nothing else."

Evalyn shook her head with a sly smile. "I spend a couple of months on an island and you turn into this stalwart renegade. You sure I wasn't holding you back?"

"Only from getting my nose stuck in trouble." She chuckled, shortly, and Daniel did too after that. The building tension between them crashed and they hugged, both glad to see the other alive. Moments like this should have happened last night, but fate and one who sought to change it had been cruel. "I, I actually have something for you," Daniel said as they pulled away. "I got a formulae for an instrument while you were gone."

"Convenient. Though it is like you to figure out flying before that." She hefted her accordion again, inspecting it. "You haven't made one already, have you?"

"Been busy saving the world," Daniel shrugged. "Also, I have no idea how accordions work and I was waiting to use yours as a model."

Evalyn put her accordion back in her bag of holding instead of handing it over as he'd expected. "Don't. I didn't want to take up this much of your time, not right now. I also might have something I'd prefer instead, now that I don't have to worry as much about it breaking. Instruments will be more durable with high level material like armor is for Knights, right?"

"So long as you use it as a Focus." Daniel didn't like the hint of Lograve he sensed in her, but couldn't stop what was coming in time.

"Oh, good. The other you gave me something I'd like you to use instead." He knew she was teasing him, but still.

"Wait, what did he give you? Why?"

"I'll tell you later." She made to break away, but paused. "Don't discount what you've done, Daniel. I heard what you said to that asshole. I see what you've done with Khiat, Willow, and somehow Tlara." A troubled narrowing of the eyes crossed her face for a moment as if she'd forgotten something, though it passed. Too much was going on for either Daniel or Evalyn to notice the discrepancy. "Spinner is… still something the jury is out on. But if I look at everything you've done when I'm gone, I think you've set a high bar for me to beat if I do end up taking back the top spot."

"There's no if, it's yours if you want it," Daniel assured, touched by her words. Then it was on to the next thing. They were coming in a flurry, and he'd just been able to deflect the first one that had arrived as a hammer blow. There'd been no time to think and barely any to sleep since he'd entered the power core. He knew he was missing something now, but he couldn't say what it was.

Still, the sword hung over his head. The crowds had dissuaded her at first. With the courtyard clearing, she was making their way now, but she moved slowly.

Is now a good time? Lograve's mental voice asked. He'd tried to grab Daniel first after Alex had departed, but Evalyn had been faster.

No, but it's going to be like this until everything is settled. Daniel inclined his head toward one of the doors as Lograve walked inside. "We can do this in my library."

"So austere," Lograve dryly remarked, entering a modest side room with maybe two dozen books altogether that had come with the house. The previous owners had left them when they'd sold the place in a mad rush to get to Aurus, which really told you everything.

"I will warn you, I got Gadriel's brother to guard this place."

Lograve shook his head, lip quirking upwards. "After spending some time as the specter myself, I can say I don't envy his condition. So many simple things were tedious, like shaving. I almost grew a beard because of how annoying it was!"

Utter blasphemy to the smooth chins of Arcanists everywhere. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Oh, only everything. Like the fact that I've been speaking Spanish since we walked in here."

Daniel blinked. "Wait, what? Say something again."

"Your house is dusty and full of spiderwebs," Lograve said, but when Daniel focused, he heard words that didn't fit with either English or the Octyrrum's language. He'd just grown so used to blocking out the dissonance.

"I think that's German, not Spanish," he replied after a moment, narrowing his eyes. "How? Power?"

"Like I'd need that," Lograve scoffed. "I was curious about the limits of the translation cheat that god shard is giving you, whether it would be limited to this world or not. And I happen to know for a fact that you have a better chance at landing Evalyn than learning another language."

"I know nothing happened between them." Daniel's voice was even, but so was Lograve's face, revealing nothing. He didn't want to turn the tables this aggressively, but Daniel took the wheel of the conversation and drove them into a ditch. "You really had no way of knowing what Chris would do?"

Lograve turned his head to the window, taking in the countryside. The drop off of Pinion's Point was visible from this angle, and the Arcanist chucked all of his humor over the edge before he looked back. This time it was Daniel delivering the punch, and it was to the midsection. "No. Not realistically. I have no idea if he planned that far ahead or not, but he was in the midst of confessing who he was when Alex and Ami were taken hostage by the people who attacked Eido. In one light, all he had to do to succeed at whatever madness he's planning was to not say anything. Either one would have come across at some point, he only made sure the 'right' one did."

"What the hell does that even mean?" Daniel stormed, though much of the electricity he tried to generate fizzled out. Too tired to make real thunder.

Lograve steepled his fingers, taking some of the moisture out of the air and compressing it into a ball before drinking it. "Ah, missed that." He made another and offered it to Daniel, who shook his head. The Arcanist was stalling, and the silence dragged the answer out. "I had time to take her in as a student after they found Eido. Your language took hardly any time at all to master, so I thought I should repay the favor. Between her and Ami…" Lograve sighed. "Alex has a chance to survive here. She learned the language, beat another Bard about the head with his instrument as her first introduction to our people, not literally, but also not figuratively in any way you need to worry about, and after they'd been taken, she was able to bounce back. Not instantly, but Ami is still deeply troubled."

"Like what happened helps." Daniel reigned himself in before he continued beating on a friend he'd just reunited with. "And what kind of bullshit logic is that? He's trapping her forever on this side, but at least he's kind enough to not choose Ami?"

"It could be a good thing. My best guess is that he's depending on her to survive. It must have something to do with the fact that they now block each other from traveling between worlds."

"We'll just have to hear it from the man himself to find out." There were problems with that, though. "The ritual?"

"Only possible at one of those rifts, I have absolutely no doubt," Lograve reported, happier to be on a less contentious topic. "The lynchpin of the last one was Tak's bond acting as a connection to form the path. With Alex and Ami purportedly having one, we can at least use that to replicate the effect. Not that it matters, but due to the mechanics of this, I am also prevented from returning to Earth. Well, it would be a one way trip. So much for the internet." His devices had still not been able to work. Their electronics must have been sensitive enough to the magic to be disrupted.

Daniel put his head in his hands. "So, every time we want to open a portal, Alex has to be there?"

Lograve winced. "I… yes. I hadn't thought that far ahead."

After a moment of shared misery, Daniel rooted through his red bag of holding. "I'm not blaming you for any of this, Lograve. I want you to know that. It's all on Chris."

The words brought more relief to Lograve than they should have unless he'd been carrying guilt within him. "Regardless, I am truly sorry. I should have- oh? What is… mimic quartz?" He looked at the purple crystal Daniel had just brought out, and between having recognized what it was and seeing where it came from, got the point before Daniel had to say anything. "Dimensional attunement. Would it work that way, though?"

"Not sure, that's up to you to find out." Daniel glanced at the identify result but didn't read it again. "The attunement's locked in now, so nothing can change it. It's a long shot, but if you can use that instead of Alex, I'd be grateful."

Lograve turned it over a few times in his hands, pondering. "I suppose there'll be little other of these with Rikendia's mines collapsed. I'll look into this right away."

"Thanks," Daniel nodded, looking upward. "There's something in my room I should probably deal with. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I know what it is. One good thing, at least."

"And you're just going to keep me in the dark about it?" Lograve asked in a good-naturedly peeved way. All secrets had come out, all big ones, but minutiae like the Craftsman Daniel had met in Aurus had been shelved for a later time. When discussing gods, topics like Engineers, or girlfriends for that matter, tended to slip through the cracks.

Daniel walked up the stairs, desperately trying not to overhear anything that was going on in the room he saw Alex and Quala's auras in, before opening his bedroom door. He found what he was looking for, but it was not the hammer beginning to fall. No, she was walking the stone of the courtyard now, mumbling about how easily it would be for her cane to get stuck in the cracks while a hunting team started to fracture around her.

Entering his room, Daniel's eyes first went to what was hovering in the air, but instead of engaging with that, he collapsed in his bed. Did I really yell at the system last night? he thought. Between everything that had happened, he'd been up for over a day and under extreme stress. He'd definitely say he had grown more resolute over the past months. Standing up to Esket had been all him, if including some carryover aggression with how close his sister had been.

But threatening to smuggle nukes into the Octyrrum? Regardless of whether they would work with how technology was affected, it was a good thing his Spoke wasn't intelligent. He was smarter than that, and he had to control himself. For Alex's sake, if nothing less.

Having begun chipping away at the mountain of emotions he'd need to process, Daniel opened his eyes and prepared to deal with the drone that Padri had made a successful delivery with. It had what looked like two compact gyroscopes sitting in recessed slots toward the front, with one spinning. Given that he'd only had one pathfinder bound to Pinion's Point before leaving for Aurus the last time, it made sense it would've come here.

Noticing a hatch on the underside, Daniel leaned underneath to open-

A knock on his door. The hammer falling. "Who is it?" Daniel asked, unable to see an aura through the door. He realized how pointless, if polite, asking was as he identified the woman at the same time as she introduced herself.

"Festra, boy. I have something we need to discuss."

The Druid? The last time Daniel had seen her was in a basement in Aughal, where they'd used her translation power to talk to Khare. How had she gotten here? And, perhaps more surprisingly, how had she gotten to a higher level than him?

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