"I'd like to come along too, if it's not much trouble. I've felt constantly restless ever since we've returned and pacing upsets Lady Mother Droya," Rithus said.

From behind the Marshlander, Orison heard, "I'm inclined to follow as well. Gan is not a person with small courage and he seems greatly discomforted by your convalescing guest."

Orison sighed and said, "It's probably not a good idea to be going anywhere alone right now anyway... I think Gan's just being overly sensitive on this one, though. Not because his instincts are wrong, per say. She's admittedly very disturbing but I don't think she's dangerous, at least not to us."

Once Gan was satisfied that Orison wasn't traveling alone, he was more than happy to 'hold down the fort' with Claudius and Corvinus. For a moment, Orison contemplated the two Tulius brothers and the pregnant elf while he 'went for a night swim'. They were good and trustworthy people but he considered them a little too overawed and respectfully distant from him whereas they were considerably more comfortable around his mom. He saw the good in Droya having her own people and that was what he decided to label them as. Whatever benefits he pa.s.sed along to them in the future, they could be done so through Droya to cement that.

The walk to the west beach wasn't overly long and the pair of roaming soldiers they met along the way bought Orison's excuse of needing to cool off with a swim. It was only a few days until longest day and the soldiers admitted to a quick dip at the end of their s.h.i.+ft a time or two. The one Orison still only knew as Mellow warned him to pay attention to the sky. The soldier had served two years on the other side of the Obsidian Strait and claimed that waterspouts and torrential rains with strong headwinds can come out of nowhere.

While swimming to the hidden alcove, Orison mumbled, "d.a.m.ned Mellow. You trying to raise flags on me or something?"

The first thing that was apparent upon walking in was that a fight had taken place here. A few splatters of blood and spiderweb cracks of scorch marks had destroyed the previous serenity of the hidden place. There was a mummified corpse here but it was the wrong one. Over to one side, a small blue dot pulled all of his attention to it. As if compelled, Orison walked over and touched it.

In Orison's mindscape, a red haired and olive skinned woman said, "A man claiming to be some such magical important person, found the gate. Using some form of augury magic, he managed to find me. Fortunately for me, he confused the other portal source as a direct representation of what secrets I might hold. Before searching me for similarly hidden things, he revealed a storage artifact that had been placed around a rib bone of the other source... He confused it as an enchanted ring! Can you believe it!?... The fool tried to interrogate me as to ascertain it's secrets.

"Well, of course I duped him into allowing me to touch it. Inside were things I am certain my poor fellow portal mate died crying about. To have salvation that near and not be able to get to it!? It's a personal torment I don't dare imagine. It's probably what killed him.

"So condensed version of events are we fought, he lost. I erased his memory as killing him might bring you harm, which would breach our oath, and I sent him back to his home. I also may have accidentally given him a compulsion to go dig for secrets in his own body before violating someone else's. I'm sure it won't be anything major.

"Look, I know there are a lot of things I know that you'd like to but the truth is, the more I share the harder I'm going to make things for you. So let me help you with a few basics and if you make it to where I am one day, I'll help you out a little more... One last thing before this remnant transfers to you, there's a box merged with the stone under where you set the lamp. It will emerge when you say your name over it's location."

The blue dot lifted from the crack in the floor and shot into Orison's head. It wasn't as nearly earth shattering in content as he thought it would be. He now knew a term for his mask and the box. They were called boundary items though some called them abandoned conduits, though few were. According to Lily, even the most mundane of boundary items were valuable because they were resistant, if not immune, to changes between dimensions. Simply put, they were more 'real' than real but they did tend to follow practical laws of items in their nature. Wood would burn and fluids could be lost to evaporation, though they tended to be more enduring and resistant to entropy than their mundane counterparts.

When it came to sharing her knowledge of 'climbing the tower', she was hesitant and spoke more vaguely. From what Orison could gather, he was in a low, very low, dimension. On a positive note, it meant that his foundation would be stronger with more 'step baptisms'. On the other side, his journey would be longer and more dangerous before he was 'established'.

When speaking of his 'key', she was even more vague. In her definition, a key was an item, knowledge or ability that transcended the laws of a current reality. Obviously some keys opened more locks and allowed one to climb higher but just simply originating from another existence or dimension greatly increased the chances of discovering new keys. She explained that it was hard to tell what key someone had but most people who had one possessed a certain quality that drew a climber's attention. Since climbers learn at one point or another how to hide that quality, it almost served as a newbie badge.

The explanation of 'tower' wasn't much better. From her point of view, a tower was the metaphysical structure one made to climb. One might need many small steps to climb one reality or one to climb many. If meeting another friendly climber, one could refer to the amount of realities one climbed as their 'steps'. The mental image ill.u.s.tration showed a stick figure with b.o.o.bs saying in a text bubble 'Hi, I'm Lily and I'm a Fourth Step'.

She explained that describing things that varied too greatly from person to person was too difficult and forcefully explaining could do more harm than good as it might give wrong impressions that could waste a climber's time. Depending on the climber, that could be fatal. While on the subject of fatal wastes of time, she explained that dimensions with magic were a double edged blessing. Often such places had many keys hidden within it's allowed parameters of magic but the study of it could take many years with little results as well.

Individual spells themselves weren't that useful outside of what opportunities for current survival, safety and comfort they offered. The study of it's theory, however, offered a great deal more. When contrasting the theories of two different reality's magic systems, she a.s.sured Orison, he would get ideas on how to leverage against the fulcrum of greater structures allowing him to create spell-like abilities even in dimensions and reality's that didn't have magic. To give him an idea, the remnant had other reality models for light, minor heal and a spell called 'presto' she said wasn't the same but shared some elements with his Degree s.h.i.+ft spell.

After the models had decompressed into his mind it didn't immediately give any meaningful revelations but he felt a slight sense of spiritual fatigue that probably meant Beta may have picked up on something. He kept his focus on the spell models as various warnings and cautions unpacked into his mind. A stray side thought realized that Lily's magically packaged info share was quite similar to the way skill books had dumped info into his head except that the skill books were far more subtle and well organized.

Humorously, Orison realized much of what she warned and cautioned about could have probably been found in a bookstore on Earth from an idiot's guide to wilderness survival and foreign travel. The warning about how 'heavy planes' like abysses and h.e.l.ls were a more dangerous place for climbers than it was for natives and it's accompanying information obviously could not. And after seeing the last caution, he felt a great deal less happy about all the possibilities her information inspired.

For most, climbing was lonely. Making friends and even deeper connections with planar natives was considered bad practice because of the emotional baggage losing them acc.u.mulated. The amount of climbers lost to emotional fatigue, according to Lily, was even greater than those lost to running out of lifespan or becoming trapped somewhere combined. She didn't claim that as an absolute truth but she did say that what she had seen of other climbers, it seemed quite plausible. Orison didn't need a caution from Lily to know just how d.a.m.ning to a person grief was but the way he saw it, a lifetime of chasing greater heights without others to share its joy with would be just as d.a.m.ning.

Orison rose to his feet and almost blanked out, wobbly and disoriented. It took him a little while to get situated and find the location of the box since Morrel was giving him a once over. He came to the irrefutable conclusion that Lily was c.r.a.ppy at transferring knowledge directly.

Orison stood over the spot mentioned, casually noting the lack of lamp, and said, "Orison... Orison... Lily, what th- Your name... Haha, Lily."

Orison stared dryly at the appearance of the box summoned by 'your name'. Ascetically speaking, he thought it was quite pretty. From what he could see, it appeared to be a cherry wood trinket box with an ornate mandala motif. Orison believed she left it for him because, value wise, it was worth multiple times what he had given her but otherwise useless. According to her, it could serve as a container for sentimental items of small size, preserving them from loss or change for awhile as long as it remained closed.

Whatever the items in it had been before, far too much time had pa.s.sed. All of the mementos the other portal mummy had kept in it had long ago adjusted to this dimension do to proximity. Moved a little to pity, Orison arranged the mummy on the bed and took the one piece out of the box that looked like a child's attempt at carving to lay with it. It made the world seem just a little less dark to him.

Outside of the place that had been repurposed to an unknown man's tomb, Orison prompted Morrel and Rithus to pick a piece out of the collection. Giving the rest over to Morrel for the elf to put in his oiled swim bag, he threw the box into his s.p.a.ce. A few seconds later, with a look of surprise and confusion on his face, Orison fainted.

***

"We really do need to stop meeting like this. It's unhealthy." Beta said.

Orison glanced around at the temple mall house and said, "Why am I here exactly?"

"Though it's just a guess, You're fairly sure about it by now, aren't you?" Beta said.

"My s.p.a.ce ate the box. I'd ask you why but you're me and will just be more certain of what I'm guessing but stop me if I'm wrong." Orison said.

Beta nodded with a faint smile and said, "We're getting the hang of this."

Orison took a deep imaginary breath and began, "So the box wasn't as plain a boundary item as it appeared... My s.p.a.ce eats boundary items related to itself, like the carry extra stuff ring...But that shouldn't be...I see. It's laws. The ring wasn't a boundary item, per say, but it did contain a small bit of gravity laws because, miasma making it real. The reason it didn't eat the gauntlets?..."

Beta chimed in, "Not likely to be a boundary item, not in a fluctuating state, mixed enchantments... That's what you know... What won't be clear yet and is only a guess for us, your s.p.a.ce is a boundary item. She didn't say they couldn't be a part of someone...

"Hypothesis; the miasma we chase was once a part of a G.o.d or flying spaghetti monster. It is lost power, left behind involuntarily most likely...Guess with circ.u.mstantial evidence; Our body contains an impression of that ent.i.ty's existence in the form of the 'blessings' granted by those books. Wild guess based off of intuition; miasma responds to our 'wishes' because that impression gives us a link to it.

"On the 'what if' conclusion all that is true or close enough, then with the new information Lily has given us, we can have a working idea. She mentioned 'abandoned conduit' as a type of boundary item but didn't clarify. We know enough to make an educated guess that the books original Orison read could fit the description if abandoned is replaced by owned."

In a eureka moment, Orison took the thought up and continued, "And of all the 'wish' structures we used to make it ours, the wish for an inventory s.p.a.ce was left the most vague, leaving the miasma a desired structure but no inspiration to draw from other than what already existed within it and whatever impressions were left around it from it's source, residual impressions from the books perhaps."

Beta took the line back up, "Now, here's were things get beyond the part of us that you are and temporarily require the part of you that I am to explain more manually. Your 'sub-processor', s.p.a.ce and soul juicer 3-in-1 isn't just an 'item', it's a part of you, an extension. You might even call it a conduit, a conduit that can make itself more complete by consuming other conduits that share it's nature. You now know a third way to help it grow. That's an important thing considering that we know miasma is limited and we have no desire to become a Lovecraft knock off monster.

"A quick bad news, good news. Good news is that once your s.p.a.ce finishes digesting the box, it'll be more useful and less constricting. It's also safe for you to put things in it again. The bad news is that it consumed everything in it that was created by miasma, though I managed to save all but one of each type of your potions. The mask is fine as well."

Orison paled and said, "That's all but the smallest fraction of our wealth!... One of each potion gone is awful suspect."

Beta nodded, "Instinct. It needed it's parent energy to help it take in the box since it's not that strong yet, a good amount of your soul crystals being 'burnt' as fuel as well. The inventory items it took in were more than just digestion aids too. Our understanding of matter and energy composition is also marginally improving along with it's conversion, slowly. It was far more ben-

***

"Do you think he has the falling sickness? I've seen warriors that take too many blows to the head. That-"

Orison cut off Gan's claim and said, "No. The gift that was left for me was just a little more 'rich' than I thought it would be... Thanks for the concern, everyone, but I need to speak with mom in private."

Droya, who was holding his hand by his bedside, said, "So you're finally awake?"

Orison said cheekily, "If I'm not, I'm really in trouble!"

Droya let go of his hand and slapped it, then said, "Not the time for jokes. Everyone's gone. Let me know what's wrong before my imagination eats too much of my sanity away."

Orison nodded. "Something very good happened to me but it's only good in the long view. Short view, we are significantly less wealthy than we were, about seventy percent less from the last time I gave you a relatively accurate update." thinking to himself, "More like ninety to ninety-five percent."

Droya blanched.

Orison said, "The supernatural incidents have given me gains I can't even begin to describe but that loss was the result. Thank goodness I had already handed those enchantments out... Your mother's jewelry is fine, by the way."

Looking only marginally better, she said, "The workers sent to start construction on the new land will need nearly twice what I have on hand to cover the contract budget. A little over a thousand gold more than that needs to be paid up front when the next major s.h.i.+p comes next week. And you know as well as I, we can expect logistics to dump paying the expenses of the base, all of them, on us until the replacement legate comes."

Orison nodded grimly. "It's far from hopeless. I'm just going to have to buckle down and do some real work for a change."

Droya said, "The enchanted items that you made for us, I-"

"No, mom. One, if we start hawking important stuff like that our reputation will take a hit we can't afford. Secondly, they are a layer of protection none in our group can do without. Thirdly, enchantments don't grow on trees. They are brand new and that will raise mage awareness to them and us. After all, I doubt an archmage is going to volunteer credit for making them, not without turning me inside out for how I did it without crippling my potential," Orison said firmly.

Sitting in silence for a time, Orison said, "But that does bring up something. Dowager Fvaris owes me. I can't be nasty about it and I sure as the Abyss can forget about getting my items back that her Grandniece robbed from me but I can leverage against that for some funds... You're much better than me at lighter touch diplomacy. Do you think you can help me write out this missive, mom?"