They'd been moving through root-portals almost every hour for a good while now, and Caen’d had to Mimic Zeris's Space affinity to handle the excruciating discomfort.

  Now, having run from a swarm several chambers back, they were waiting for Zeris to activate the root-portal. Her will was strained, and she was running very low on mana, so she needed to work slowly. They had completely run out of food and water. Guinevere's mana storage device was empty, and Caen was nearly gutted himself. Due to the atrocious mana control that came with abjection and how frequently his spells collapsed, he'd learned to be terribly efficient with his mana consumption from a very early age. That served him well now, allowing him to put in just the bare minimum of mana into spells. But he'd been pushing past the worst of will strain. They all were.

  [You know it's bad when you start missing the Ol’ Poats and Oats,] Guinevere said.

  [Poats and Oats?] Caen asked, keeping an eye on the entrances as he breathed heavily, exhausted from all the running.

  [It rhymes. If I can't improve the taste of that blessed mashed potatoes and oats, I might as well make it sound better. I didn't know what I had,] she lamented.

  Caen snorted.

  When Zeris activated the root-portal, Caen moved through first. He was the only one who could see in the dark, and they'd decided to stop bringing any light sources into new chambers without verifying that no ants were present. The creatures, when frenzied, were much harder to kill.

  On the other side, his connection to her started fraying immediately. Caen was shocked to see an old man hovering in the air with his legs crossed in a lotus position.

  [Empty, save for a… man,] he sent back to them. They had not seen anyone here all this time, and for a moment, he thought he might be hallucinating.

  [Is it someone from the rescue party?] Zeris asked as she and Guinevere hurdled through the root-portal.

  [I don't know.]

  [Sound is being suppressed in here,] Guinevere sent. [I can't hear anything.]

  [Gwen, don't turn on the lamp yet,] Caen sent back as he connected to the man. He connected with great strain, sensing the briefest glimpse of a tapestry of blurred light surrounding the man, only to have his existence forcefully rebuffed the next moment. Caen could see his own soul structure; his existence was still unfurled… it just wasn't connecting to this man's. This hadn't happened before.

  He began backing away. [I think we should—]

  The old man opened his eyes, irritation plain across his face.

  A wave of vertigo slammed into Caen. His skin rippled, and his bones shivered. His mind blanked for an instant. His body, mind, and spirit felt as though under the weight of an anvil. His soul structure moved chaotically under the scrutiny of a thousand eyes.

  [Back! Back through the root-portal,] he called.

  At the same time, Guinevere was saying, [That's not good! We need to go now!]

  Zeris hadn't closed the root-portal yet.

  Back in the chamber, a group of ants was waiting for them, and more were coming still. Caen and Guinevere engaged them as Zeris focused on closing and reopening the portal to take them somewhere else. Caen had never been more tired in all his life.

  [It's active! Caen, hurry!]

  He retreated backwards, trusting Guinevere to cover for him, and stuck his head through the root-portal. A vast cavern, unlike anything they'd seen so far, stretched out below him. A great many ants crawled on the walls, on the ceiling; swarms of them. A pair of terribly large broad ants—larger than any he'd seen so far—turned towards Caen the moment he used the portal.

  Caen recoiled. [Close it! Close it now! There are hundreds of them in there.]

  [I can't. Something is holding it open,] Zeris sent, panicked.

  Caen joined Guinevere. [We’ll cut past the ones here and make a run for another chamber.]

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Just as he'd made that declaration, groups of ants streamed through the other two entrances. Caen steeled himself.

  [Incoming!] Zeris warned. Caen connected to her.

  Ants began pouring out of the root-portal.

  Caen took several cuts, scrapes, and splatters of burning acid for each slash of his sword. Beside him, Zeris was using up the dregs of her mana to conjure fireballs. Caen Impassioned all of them as Zeris rattled off modifier combinations. In the state they were in, they couldn't individually bear the strain of Passionfire and were thus sharing spells. His mind was split in two, and he hadn't even the slightest room for considering how hopeless this situation was. His voice was raw from screaming at the top of his lungs, though he could not even hear it now over the loud chittering of ants.

  His mind was strained to the limit, his body, his spirit. Even his speculon tingled. The warmth of—

  Caen's momentary loss of concentration earned him a cut across the face and sprays of acid.

  The warmth, the soft pings of Planar light. He could not see it, even with his speculon, but it was undeniable.

  [They're here!] Caen sent, and at the same time, he emitted a ping of his own in the direction he'd sensed Sh'kteiro's ping. He hoped to all his ancestors before him that it truly was Sh'kteiro.

  The ant in front of him was suddenly sliced by the beautiful colors of Planar light. Several of the ants surrounding them followed. The majority, however, froze in place.

  Not even a second later, the ceiling parted away, flowing aside as a large blue serpent hurtled through, carrying seven people on its back.

  A woman with blond hair rode in front, eyes blazing with rage: Nimue, Guinevere's sister. Albion, her brother with similarly blond hair, jumped off the serpent before it even came to a stop. He was covered in seamless, crystal armor from the neck down.

  As soon as one of the large ants came through the portal, all the smaller ones that had been frozen in place turned and attacked it. At the same time, particles of sparkling gold and silver materialized over his head and stretched out into beams of light that tore into the large, broad ants and whatever else came through.

  [Hello, Guin-Guin's friends. Get behind me, if you will,] Albion said into their minds.

  They hurried to comply. Everyone on the serpent disembarked. Vensha rushed towards Caen, pulling him and Zeris into a hug. “Tahal! You two idiots made us worry so much!”

  Sh'kteiro was right behind her. “I am beyond relieved to see you both.”

  “Thank you for finding us.”

  He laughed. “Thank you for staying alive.”

  Nimue, the blond woman, was fussing over Guinevere. Guinevere had mentioned someone called Antoine helping out with the portals.

  Hshnol stood away from the reunion. He nodded curtly at Caen. Caen returned the nod, and the man returned his attention to the fight.

  Albion was laying waste to the hoards of the Planar creatures with his attacks, and several of them were freezing in place as soon as they came out of the root-portal. Hshnol was watching the root-portal calmly.

  Was Hshnol responsible for freezing the ants? Caen and Zeris had always speculated that the man was a Dream-guardian like Vai. Caen connected to him and was shocked to experience the same thing he had when he'd connected to Sh'kteiro: he couldn't make out anything in the man's soul structure.

  He'd known Hshnol all his life, and he was what, a Percipient? Caen had no way of knowing for certain if people at the peak of Attuner were also imperceptible to Soul-sense.

  Does Uncle Vai even know about this?

  Caen had seen Vai send the Vedul man on some of the most inane errands. This was either really ridiculous or really concerning.

  He connected to Albion and cut the connection, having experienced the same thing he had with Hshnol just now. He turned to Nimue. Same thing.

  Ancestors. Both of Guinevere's siblings, too?

  The chamber grew quiet the next moment. Ladia and a dark skinned man sporting bulbous black hair rushed towards the root-portal.

  Just to make sure, Caen connected to the man, but could see his soul structure easily enough.

  Several rather large broad ants lay to either side of the root-portal, very dead. Ant parts and pieces were strewn about.

  “The roots—” began Caen, glancing up at the ceiling.

  “Oh, don't you worry; they won't be moving for a while yet,” the blond woman said with a malicious tone. None of that malice seemed directed at him, however.

  “It’s sealed,” Antoine called out. “Though, wow, something's really pushing from the other side. Oh wow. That's huh.”

  “I'd stay and annihilate them, but these kids look like scarecrows,” Albion said, eyeing the scarecrows in question. “And I'd hate to do this so-called Chancellery and their stupid war effort any favors.”

  “Alright! Everyone, back on Hakohnzo,” Nimue said.

  Hakohnzo was a huge, blue snake that hovered in the air. An awakened creature. They climbed onto its back, and Caen found himself held in place by something that felt like a soft kinetic effect.

  Nimue made a path through the firm earth of the tunnels. It all peeled away from them as they flew straight up and out of what had been a prison to him for some time now.

  They breached the last layer of soil, and Caen had never been happier to see the ugly moon of the Odaton-plane Plane in all his life.