Ryman pointed at the refreshment stand where noble youths behaved no differently from his much less refined kids after tasting a few flavors. Many adults were ignoring the known cold and hot dishes in favor of the exotic treat as well, forcing the house staff to constantly refill the various bowls. "It's not worth it." Lith shrugged. "The moment I disclose the recipe, every idiot with chore magic can do it." 'Luckily, Mogar's chocolate isn't toxic for animals once they evolve into magical beasts or things would get tragic here fast.' He actually thought, glad to have made sure of it in the past before offering ice cream to any of his non-human friends. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶 "Can I borrow Lith for a minute?" Nalrond asked. "Sure." Protector nodded, taking his leave to have a conversation with the Hati Queen. Ever since his first clash with the Hati in Ajatar's mines, he had felt an odd kinship with them and he was curious to understand how similar they were to Skolls. "Wow, you look like shit." Lith said without mincing words. "Thanks." The Rezar replied with a snarl. "But you don't look so hot either." "It's nothing." Lith sighed. "I'm just having more and more difficulty developing the auxiliary cores I need to reach the bright violet. My whole body hurts every time I try to condense more and I think I'm reaching my limit. "If I don't understand what's wrong with my Voidfeather Dragon life force, I'll be stumped again. What's your excuse?" "I'm not even Awakened, I'm nowhere close to even the bright blue, and my body feels like it's going to fall apart any moment now." Nalrond was pale and clammy, needing his meditating technique just to keep the symptoms in check. "Are you telling me that you've reached the same point Tista did after fighting with the cursed objects?" Lith's eyes went wide in surprise. "No, I'm nothing like her." A few deep breaths stabilized the barrier that kept his human and Emperor Beast sides apart, making the pain stop. "Tista's life forces naturally wanted to merge and she was willingly stopping them. "I, instead, have struggled until now to try and make them meet, but I'm facing an impossible conundrum. If I keep the barrier standing, I can't make my life forces interact or attempt to merge them. "Whenever I try to weaken it past a certain point, however, due to my age and the power they have both accumulated, my life forces repel each other with so much violence that they start to tear apart what's left of the barrier on their own." "Isn't that a good thing?" Lith asked. "No, it's not." Nalrond replied in exasperation. "I've spent years trying to understand my beast life force and getting in touch with it. During the past year, I've whittled the barrier bit by bit by spending my free time as a Rezar, enjoying what it has to offer me. "The problem is that all of this just made my beast side stronger, it didn't bring my two life forces closer. I can feel that they are not trying to overcome the barrier to merge. "They are like two hungry caged predators throwing themselves at the bars, each sent into a frenzy by the smell of the other's blood. Once they met, I won't have months like Tista to make up my mind. "Heck, I'll be lucky if I'll have hours. My bet is that either I pick one on the fly or I'll go boom." "Sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do for you?" "Actually, yes." The Rezar nodded. "I've heard from Friya about your problems and from Faluel about the issue with Jiera so I thought about something that might solve everything in one trip." "Do you want to go back to the Fringe?" Lith raised his brow. "Yes. I've found my first clue there and we've planned to go back there together since before the War of the Griffons. Now there's no Balkor copycat on the prowl, no Thrud, or any impending crisis. This is the perfect time to go there." "Actually, Meln is still at large and my prolonged absence could lure him or some other crazy head out. Kami is-" "Pregnant with the granddaughter of two Guardians who dote her plus a third one who blotted the sky of Garlen the moment she was in danger." Nalrond cut him off. "We both know that once Elysia is born Kamila will be fair game but the rest of Mogar doesn't. "This is the perfect moment to leave, lure them out, and let the Guardians take out the trash." Lith liked the idea of having any potential threat wiped out without him moving a finger while at the same time finding a solid lead to solve his differences with the Voidfeather Dragon. "I'll miss not killing Meln in person, but it's something I can live with." Lith nodded. "But why now? I mean, the war is over for a while. We could have gone to the Fringe anytime." "Because the Fringe is a gamble, and a dangerous one at that." The Rezar sighed. "We'll have to deal with the Dewans and the elves, and I mean thousands of them inside their own home. "On top of that, there's no telling we'll actually discover something useful. Even if we manage to perform the ritual and get to talk with Mogar, they speak in riddles. It might as well be a colossal waste of time. "I've waited until now because I hoped to learn something from Tista, but it failed because our conditions were polar opposites. Then, I hoped that the Harmonizer would help me. "Yet now that Faluel has deciphered Glemos' blueprints, she had some pretty bad news for me. The reason that bastard performed live experimentation outside Zelex was to improve on the altered life forces he had already discovered and he still sacrificed dozens of monsters for his research. "In my case, since no one has any idea what the shape of my combined life forces is supposed to look like, devising a proper Body Sculpting spell without crippling me is going to take years. "Years that I don't have! You are having a child, Quylla is now married, and I can't keep Friya on stand-by forever. I can see how envious she is of you guys moving forward while our relationship is stuck. "I can almost hear her fear of ending up dead like Phloria without having achieved any of the goals she has set for herself. The Fringe is the only way I've left to find the solution I want within a reasonable time. "You are a Divine Beast, we have now plenty of Menadion's artifacts, and Jiera's developments give us something that we can offer the elves in exchange for their help. Land and freedom. "If we bring Aalejah with us, we'll have an ambassador they will be willing to listen to. While she keeps them busy, we get our audience with Mogar. Best case scenario, the elves take Zelex's same deal and join the fight against the monster tides and the lost cities. "Worst case scenario, they refuse and we bail out like the last time. Either way, we get what we wanted."