Grey was, as was typical of the man, tinkering with something behind his desk in the lab as I stepped through the vault door. Judging from the state of it, I hazarded a guess that he might just have been in here all day and all night. I suppose the man had taken the chance that the Ball offered in order to have some alone time to blow on personal projects.

  Normally, I would have been happy to join him, but…I needed some answers first.

  As I approached the work desk, I kept my feelings from showing on my face. Still, when Grey looked up with a smile on his own, I saw it slowly die at the sight of me. I think that he could somehow tell I was displeased.

  So, I didn’t beat around the bush.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the System?” I asked Grey bluntly as I eased down into the chair across from him.

  In response, Grey’s brow furrowed, and he stopped fiddling with the tool held in his right hand. “In what capacity, Nathan? I assure you, there isn’t anything I’ve kept to myself in regards to the System itself.”

  I let a heavy breath escape my nose, as impatience built. “Don’t give me that crap, Grey,” I said sharply, causing his eyebrows to raise in surprise. “I spoke to the Primector. It turns out he came here in the first place just to speak to me. I know all about how the System is dying.”

  Something happened, then, that I didn’t expect. Something I’m…not sure I’d ever seen from the much older man.

  Grey’s face completely slackened in shocked horror, and he dropped the tool to clatter down onto the desk. “What?” He asked hoarsely.

  I blinked rapidly, my indignation and anger draining out of me. I eyed my mentor for a moment, trying to decide if he was being genuine or not. And…

  I think he was. There was only so much you could really fake when it came to people you were truly close to. Grey was pretty accomplished with hiding his real feeling, yes. A skill like that was easy to build up over literal centuries of life. But he rarely felt the need to deceive me in a manner like that. Not these days.

  I…think he might not have known.

  “You didn’t know?” I whispered to myself in confusion. I shook my head. “But…Aurelius said the leaders of all the world governments were told.”

  “Told that the System is dying?!” Grey shot to his feet. He rapidly crossed to the other side of the desk and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Nathan, I am not part of any world government! I’m a schoolteacher! Yes, I might head a strong paramilitary force, but that doesn’t give me access to such a secret!” He shook me by the shoulders in frustration, his grip tightening slightly. “What is happening?!”

  Ah. I’d…made a mistake. I’d automatically assumed that someone as important as Grey would have been informed of something as important as the potential death of the System. But…maybe it made sense why he hadn’t been. Aurelius hadn’t told me when the Gyreite church had informed the state heads that the System was weakening. It was entirely possible it had happened sometime in the last, what, fifty years? Grey had been on the outs with the Crown for a long time now, considering the unrest that the Sculpted had brought to Herztal. While they might have been sapient for only five years, they’d been around longer.

  That was… short-sighted of them. Grey was one of the foremost experts on Aetherology on the planet. While that didn’t directly translate to insight on the System, there was a correlation.

  I placed my hands on his, as I stood back up from where I’d sat only moments before. “Alright. Okay. I’ll…start from the beginning.”

  Standing there before Grey’s desk, I filled my mentor in on everything Aurelius had told me last night. Just the fact that the head of the Gyreite Church was a former Precursor alone was enough for the man to outright goggle at me in further shock. It only deepened as I spoke about everything I’d been told the night before.

  From the Primector’s origins, to his expedition to one of the few remaining Netherim bunkers-

  (Which caused Grey to break out into a swearing fit, all by itself. After all, my mentor had been obsessed with opening the door to the one below his hometown for centuries, and that was publicly known. Aurelius had deliberately chosen not to inform him about the secret to opening it.)

  -all the way through the Gyreite efforts to revitalize the System. By the time I was done, we had not only migrated back to our chairs, but Grey had broken out the strong booze. While I had received a glass of the liquor, Grey had resorted to drinking straight from the bottle.

  I had to stop and stare in amazement as he outright chugged an entire bottle of booze strong enough to strip paint. Forget having a Status, I think if Grey hadn’t been as high-level as he was, that would have killed him.

  Pretty sure it would have killed me.

  “Do you want some air to go with that liquor?” I asked him, a bit relieved despite myself. That, and guilty. I really shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.

  In response, Grey just held up a single finger to stop me while he finished the bottle. When he was done, I ducked my head as he threw it over my head to shatter into a far corner.

  “Damnit,” Grey hissed, clenching the edges of the desk hard enough to leave dents in the hardwood. “Why wasn’t I informed?! This is pertinent information! I could have helped!”

  “Could old King Otto…” I started slowly, sharply drawing the man’s attention. “Have deliberately kept it from you?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  If possible, Grey’s scowl only deepened. “I wouldn’t have put it past the man, frankly,” He muttered darkly. “Otto and I always had a, shall we say, fractious relationship. He wasn’t half the man his Father was. It felt like I had to fight him on every issue that required both of our attentions. It…likely had to do with how he chose to attend the Academy as a young man, and subsequently failed out. He was not the most studious of attendees, choosing to spend his time frivolously attending to social occasions instead. I believe the man personally blamed me for his failures, and thus adopted an adversarial stance for the duration of his reign. Considering that reign lasted for thirty years, I’d say it was possible that he deliberately shunned me from this knowledge,” Grey sighed. “What a disaster.”

  I nodded with a sigh of my own. “Now we have to deal with the consequences.”

  “Yes,” Grey said, drumming his fingers on his desk in thought. “Three centuries, Aurelius said? I shall have to meet with Leopold to discuss our next plans. I…understand that this information should not be disseminated to the general public to prevent a panic. But at the very least, I must inform my chosen successor to my Order.”

  I eyed him quietly for a moment, understanding the implication in that statement. “You don’t think you’re going to be around that long.”

  Grey’s eyes flicked up to meet mine, and he smiled mirthlessly. “No, I do not. I’ve plateaued, Nathan. I no longer seek additional strength from the apparently failing System, and thus my life has a definitive end date. I personally believe I have perhaps a century, maybe a century and a half left in me. I’ve examined the…effects that my time under the slave bond had upon my being, and I do believe it shortened the span of my existence. Which means we must act with renewed haste.”

  “Let’s just…list things out, for a moment. One,” I said, lifting a finger to illustrate. “You need to prepare your Order for the worst-case scenario, while I need to alter the priorities of mine slightly to account for it. Two, I need to attend to the social problems here in Herztal, which I have some…ideas about. That includes the coming wave of freed slaves via Bleddyn. Three, Grey, we seriously need to put some time into finishing our work powering the repository,” I nodded to the GLEAM resting in a plinth on Grey’s desk, polished and…gleaming in the low light. “Who knows what’s really in there? Maybe the Netherim had greater insight into the System, and could tell us just what we need to do to save it, beyond the obvious. Or, hell. Maybe their technology could be the edge we need to prepare in case…”

  “In case Aurelius is wrong, and the System cannot be saved even by slaying the gods,” Grey finished.

  We exchanged a grim smile at what I was gratified to see we were both wondering. After all, the Primector was just hoping that by killing the Netherim defectors, we’d be able to heal the System. He didn’t know. It was all just supposition. Honestly, I didn’t blame him for it, and it was probably a good idea to at least try to kill them. I think Aurelius was acting from a position of faith when he begged me to fulfill the purpose of the Precursors. Understandably, coming from a very religious man.

  But Grey and I were different. I liked to think we were cut from the same cloth. We were skeptical, almost a bit paranoid at times. He was a very scholarly man, while I liked to consider myself more a burgeoning schemer. We worked well together, that way, complementing each other’s strengths and covering for our weaknesses.

  It was fine to hope for the best. But we had to prepare for the worst.

  “Speaking of,” Grey said, changing the topic. “I had an idea. Something a bit…unorthodox. I’ll need time to test my hypothesis, though. Give me a week, and I believe I’ll have solved our energy problem for the plug.”

  I perked up, glad to hear any good news whatsoever. “Oh? What did you figure out?”

  My mentor just smirked at me teasingly. “I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise. Now go. No doubt you have business to attend to, Marshall.”

  I snorted, but nodded anyway at the reminder. He was right, of course. I’m sure Bait had been busy while I was in class, and I was going to need to check in with my…subordinates.

  God, what a weird and slightly dehumanizing way to think of my friends.

  Either way, I had a chunk of free time to finish something I’d been meaning to. I bid farewell to Grey, and then left both the lab and campus altogether, winging back home.

  To my personal workshop.

  …………………………………….

  The next day, Robert Rudfeld, Bleddyn’s agent down here in Blutstein, staggered under the large bag I had tossed his way. After I’d confirmed my willingness to help in their cause, and after he had borne witness to the signing of the charter of the Polaris Reach, I’d helped set him up in a nicer place than where he was staying. Previously, the man had been sleeping in an abandoned building up here in the middle layer, after sneaking his way up from the lower one.

  But for the last week or so, he’d been staying in a nice inn. It was the least I could do for a former fellow slave, after all.

  It was still deeply funny to scare the absolute crap out of the man, though. Particularly by popping up in the middle of his room, while he was having breakfast, and veritably hurling a bag his way. The man started so badly I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack, if he didn’t choke to death on his mouthful of eggs. That was before he was knocked off balance by the sack, and teetered backwards to land on his back.

  I didn’t bother to restrain my laughter at the relatively harmless prank. I think spending more time with Sylvia was giving me a more mischievous inclination.

  I didn’t regret it, though. Not one bit.

  Robert groaned from his place on the floor. “Good morning, Sir Hart,” He said dully, not bothering to stand up.

  “Good morning, Bobby!” I said cheerfully, deliberately ignoring his confusion as he mouthed that name. It wasn’t exactly something I’d ever heard here in Herztal, after all. “Equally good news! I finished the Bond Breakers Bleddyn asked for. In that bag, you’ll find two dozen of my latest design. Faster, smaller, more efficient, and far more durable than the prototype he had initially, I really doubt these will accidentally break in a fight.”

  My words caused the man to finally scramble to his feet, if only to check the veracity of my words. As he opened the pack to look inside, Robert was apparently struck dumb by the sight of two dozen gleaming runic bidents the size of particularly thick dinner forks inside. He shook his head and looked up at me, his eyes shining. “Sir Hart…I…,”

  My smile softened, and I approached to pat him on the shoulder. “No need for thanks. Really, I get it. Now, I’ve also included a letter of my own in there for Bleddyn. In it, I’ve given him a timeline for how long it’ll take us to get everything ready for the refugees. Roughly twoish months, I’d say. Coincidentally, that’s about how long I would expect for you to get back in Principality land, inform him, and then send the first wave down here.”

  Robert laughed a tad wetly and accepted a hand up from me. “Maybe. I…don’t really know. But with this…I need to go, and I need to go today. This really can’t wait.”

  “I’d say so,” I said with a tolerant smile. “Work to be done and all that. Before you do, though, take this.” I removed a small, jingling bag from its place attached to my belt and dropped it on top of the sack containing the Breakers. “Here. Enough gold to smooth your journey north. I imagine you have no problem with any required bribes with that. Good luck on your travels, Bobby.”

  The man looked down at the sack with conflicted feelings. “Sir Hart, you’ve really done enough. I’m not sure I…can…” He trailed off as he looked back up.

  Because I was gone, slipped back into invisibility while he hadn’t been looking.

  Robert Rudfeld sighed, but still smiled helplessly to himself. “I guess Classers aren’t all bad…”

  Internally giggling to myself, I slipped out of his room.

  Man, this whole ‘eccentric public figure’ thing was pretty fun.