For a time they had needed to work their way along the chasm extremely cautiously, afraid that a malicious opponent would start attacking them from above, or that collateral damage would spill into the chasm. Such a threat only emerged once: a Ruler went pitching over the side of the canyon, desperately scrabbling at the rocky fragments until she plunged into the river and was gone. They saw others with decreasing frequency as the chasm loomed higher above them.

By the time Theo finally spotted the sort of entrance he had been looking for, they were surrounded by nothing but the lamentations.

"Observe the other side." He carefully propped himself against the wall of the chasm, where they crawled across a razor ledge. "Fiyu, how deep does that hole go?"

"Hole?" Nauda asked, peering to the other side. "Almost covered by the spray?"

"I feel it, but..." Fiyu frowned and lowered her head, her cantae surging. "The air and the river are both troubling my senses. It goes deeper, but I do not know how deep."

"Then we'll just have to investigate the other side." Theo took a deep breath and cast a gravitational field to neutralize their gravity. "Everyone, push to the other side. Senka, you're not going to do something stupid, are you?"

"Sporp."

Since she didn't seem harmed by the river, Theo only cared if she somehow pulled one of them in. He made sure his field was firm despite the interference and then pushed across to the other side. When he hit the opposite wall, the sharp rocks bit deeper than he expected, almost drawing blood. If they hadn't been Archcrafters with feast chambers, they might have torn themselves apart. Fortunately, the other three all landed not far away, around an opening that was nearly invisible from any other angle.

"This is the reason we were traveling so close to the river," Theo said as he helped Fiyu lower herself into the hole. "The river sometimes bores down into the core, and in the wake of it particularly powerful sublime materials form. One similar to this carried me to Stronghold."

Nauda shot him a nervous glance. "If the river carved this out, what are the chances that there's still death water in there, or that more comes in? The river would only need to flood a little to come in after us..."

"That's why we have Fiyu to check the layout. You can sense the tunnels here, right?"

"Mostly." Fiyu looked up from the hole to them and frowned. "The entrance curves away from the river and then the tunnel splits in many directions. I cannot feel significant amounts of liquid, but the atmosphere changes to a thicker gas in the lower sections."

"Then we have to use the animabladders. Just like we practiced." Theo pulled his from his pack, uncomfortably fitted the pipe in his mouth, and strapped it on firmly. The others obeyed quickly and soon all three of them ventured into the tunnel.

Along the way, he confirmed that the masks had good enough airflow. Nauda lit a cantae flame between the forks of her staff, which illuminated the dark blue corridors. Due to it, they could easily see a gray mist when the tunnel curved downward. Though Nauda floated a flame closer to test if the gas was explosive, Theo remembered that it didn't react, only poisoned. He let her do the test just in case, and they entered carefully to be sure that the animabladders filtered out the poison, but these elements of the Chasm hadn't changed.

Within minutes, he was sure that they'd found what they needed. Though the walls appeared as jagged as the chasm in places, these glistened in the light with a coating of sublime moss. That itself wasn't useful, but it grew on cantae and indicated the presence of other valuable materials.

After some time, they found a larger cavern that appeared to be free of gas except for the lowest lying sections. Theo swept it for dangerous elements and then established it as a base. Careful tests revealed they could remove their masks there, though not for long, so they would mostly operate by hand signals. There were crystals all around that he thought were called blueshards - not essential for his soulhome, but the sort of thing that House Blacksilver wanted from the Chasm. They were rather durable, so Nauda began breaking them apart while the others investigated the paths traveling in other directions.

Fiyu was the first one to find something truly valuable, in a path he'd actually walked through. He saw her bend down and turned back to make sure that she hadn't been overwhelmed by the gas, only to realize that she knelt down to reach into a deep crevice. She seemed to pull out a handful of mist, then he realized that the mist flowed in a sphere. Though it didn't advertise its cantae, the mist was remarkably dense, which was likely how she had noticed it.

Between her mask and the animabladder, Fiyu's face was nearly entirely obscured, but he could still tell that she was elated. While she headed back to the central area with her prize, Theo finished exploring his current set of branching paths. He found some deposits of a very powerful sublime stone... definitely useful for soulcrafting bricks for later floors, but not blueprint-defining.

Eventually he returned to join the others in the gas-free area. Nauda had finished breaking apart all the blueshards and was absorbing them into her soulhome for later extraction. Her tower might not be the best use of soulhome volume, but it certainly made for an effective storage space. Not far from her, Fiyu shifted from foot to foot until she at last pulled down her lower mask.

"This is very like a mistheart!" She thrust the sphere of mist in Nauda's face, then his. "Though it has a different essence, its nature is almost exactly like what my relative told me to acquire."

"For your Corporeal Floor?" Theo asked. It struck him as a very risky material to integrate as an Archcrafter, but Fiyu could probably manage it if her blueprint offered support.

"Yes, actually for my heart. I will place it inside now, and perhaps in the future my path will be easier."

"I actually found something myself." Nauda tugged her mask down enough to speak and gestured for him to follow. In an upper corner of the largest cavern, there was a crystal stalactite... and not simply another blueshard. Though it was duller than the rest, something pulsed deep within. "I didn't disrupt it in case it's dangerous, but it has more cantae than anything I've found so far."

Theo wasn't sure what it was, so he cautiously placed his palm against the stone. He soon felt something throbbing through the stone, almost like a heartbeat. Though he wasn't familiar with the exact material, he had experience harvesting similar types.

"When you break the outer layer," he explained, "it's going to begin deteriorating. We need to break it very gently, without driving any crystal into the core. Then you reach straight in and absorb it."

"Are you sure that's safe?"

"I can't guarantee the core will be useful to you, but it's just a powerful sublime material. Whatever happens, don't flinch, just absorb it."

He cast a point of anti-mass at the core, trying to push all matter away from it. Though he wasn't powerful enough to push material, much less break apart the stone, he could exert some gravitational movement. When Nauda tapped the stalactite just hard enough to shatter it, the pieces dropped away in all directions, leaving the core unharmed.

Immediately she thrust her other hand in, ignoring the shards to grasp the core. It proved to be a dark mass of flesh, throbbing with green fluid. Many might have been repulsed or failed to absorb it, but Nauda clenched her fist and crushed the core directly into her soulhome.

"Eww." Nauda rubbed her hand on her dress the next moment, as if the spiritual remnants of the sublime material lingered. "That thing feels incredibly heavy, but... what is it?"

"We should take a better look." When he extended a hand in her direction, she took it and drew him directly into her soulhome.

The fleshy core pulsed on the ground, flooding cantae in all directions. Nauda tried to pick it up idly at first, then had to use both arms and brace herself to heft it up. As a spirit Theo couldn't do anything to help her stagger to her storage chamber, but he examined the object and its cantae closely.

"This is an amazing material," he had to admit. "It appears organic, but it grew in a crystal and can probably connect with inorganic materials in a soulhome. Could be part of a Corporeal Floor, a specialized room, or even a heart chamber."

"Maybe, but not for me." Nauda heaved it into her storage room, then straightened and wiped sweat from her forehead. "That thing feels... off. My whole blueprint has been natural materials, whether they're alive or just remnants. I don't think that thing was ever part of a living creature."

"You don't think it's compatible?"

"Not right now, but I suppose I might come up with something brilliant by the time I reach Authority. I definitely couldn't survive incorporating it now."

He'd expected to find plenty of valuable sublime materials they couldn't easily use, so that was no surprise. If they helped House Blacksilver come out of the Chasm in a strong position, they've have leverage to trade for more useful items. Eventually they'd need sublime materials that couldn't be bought with money alone, and unique materials were often the only currency that would suffice.

When Theo returned to his physical body, he intended to check with Fiyu and coordinate further searches. It didn't go that way because of what he immediately heard.

"Yummies, yummies." Senka didn't sound like her usual lively self, perhaps because her mouth was full of some sort of mushroom. He stared at her as he realized that she was eating what felt like a very potent sublime material.

She stared at him. He stared back. Theo took a step in her direction and she immediately sprinted into the corridor with her arms flailing over her head.

Tugging his animabladder mask back on, Theo pursued her into one of the dark corridors. She could move remarkably fast, but was slowed by the need to reach down and grab something off the ground. This time he caught up to her and snatched it out of her hand.

Another mushroom, as blue as the rock around it. Mist wafted from the cut part of the stem, extremely similar to the shimmering patterns that disrupted cantae in the Chasm sky. Not a material he knew, but definitely too valuable to let them disappear into Senka's gullet.

Unfortunately, she wormed out of his grip and slipped around his weakened gravitational field, scrambling to scoop up another mushroom. Theo groaned into his mask and pursued her into the tunnel.

She led him on a madcap chase, and though he usually managed to grab the mushrooms from her, it was always a close thing. His efforts to stop her seemed essentially futile, and it only ended when they reached a dead end and apparently all the mushrooms were gone. Senka sat on a rock, her cheeks stuffed with mushrooms. When Theo glowered at her, she swallowed, then curled up and went to sleep.

As much as she annoyed him, he grabbed her by the back of her dress and carried her as he explored the rest of the corridors they'd passed. Frustratingly, though he found more valuable sublime stones and crystals, not a single one would serve as a room centerpiece. Some durable materials that might help with an ascension, a smaller number that generated cantae, and none that were suited to his gravitational blueprint.

The others had yet to return, so he waited and examined one of the mushrooms that he hadn't absorbed. Now that he got a better look, he really wasn't sure what to think of them. If the mist they emitted was the same as that found above, eating them would be a terrible idea. They didn't particularly generate cantae, but they did have strong distortion properties, he just wasn't sure what they could be used for.

Just before he became worried, Nauda and Fiyu returned. Nauda tugged off her mask immediately to breathe freely, taking a few breaths before staring at him. "These things might save our lives, but I'm starting to hate them. Can we go get some fresh air?"

"We probably need it before long, but I'd like to clear out this place in case anyone catches up." Theo rose to his feet to face them. "I've cleared the tunnels this way, so I wanted to ask you about the directions you went."

"It's mostly more crystal and stone, but there are a few materials we thought we should handle together." Nauda paused and looked at the remaining mushrooms. "Just what are those? I never noticed them."

"Some sort of sublime fungus. I absorbed quite a few to keep Senka from eating them." He tossed one to each of the others. "I don't suggest eating it, but try to draw it into your soulhome anyway. Maybe you'll find a use for them that I couldn't."

Nauda sniffed it experimentally, then dropped the mushroom in disgust. Fiyu worked harder to absorb it, but after flickering into a haze of soulcrafting for only a moment, she returned shaking her head. "I do not like this sublime material, Theo. It is not appropriate for my soulhome, so I have burned it in my central fire."

"That's fine, there are bound to be some useless materials here. What did you find?"

"Ah, yes." Fiyu's mood visibly brightened, even from just a shadow of her eyes through her mask. "There is a strange liquid I wanted to ask you about, and also a volatile region. I believe that you can help us extract resources from them."

They led him through stripped tunnels until they reached an odd depression in a bend. A pale liquid lay in the bottom, like an ordinary puddle except for the cantae hissing from it. His eyes widened as he realized that it was related to the river above, somehow filtered through all the stone of the Chasm. Extremely potent, but also difficult to handle.

Working solely by gestures, he was able to coordinate with Fiyu to absorb it, since it seemed most appropriate for her. Touching the liquid would be inadvisable, and drinking it downright suicidal, so instead he generated a flame to begin evaporation. Fiyu managed to draw in the steam before it could harm her body, prepared on the other side to gather it into a jug she'd fashioned from sublime clay. Dealing with that liquid was going to be extremely difficult, but he had a few ideas that might prove interesting.

Finally Nauda pulled him down the last tunnel, where he discovered it ended in a glowing red crack. Fiyu gestured to the stone and the crack, and though he wasn't quite sure of her every implication, she clearly sensed that the density within was highly different. Nauda simply eyed it suspiciously, which told him enough. It was a dangerous formation, but fortunately one he knew how to work.

Theo placed his mask over his eyes and stopped up his ears with the silencemoss earplugs, waiting until the other two copied him. He mimed the bright crack exploding, so they retreated to a safer distance. When Theo attempted to pierce it with a bolt of cantae, however, even a gravitational bolt, the stone resisted him.

For all his tricks, he still had an Archcrafter's cantae. He gestured to Nauda, who nodded understanding and advanced just around the corner. She lifted her staff, braced in both hands, and then thrust the binding force directly into the crack.

The explosion sent all of them tumbling down the corridor, cantae rushing from their soulhomes to defend their bodies. Screams as if the voices outside were being tortured flooded through the tunnel, faintly audible even through the earplugs. If they hadn't been fully masked, they could easily have been blinded, and as Theo regained his feet, he realized that they still hadn't entirely escaped.

Nauda stumbled, disoriented and tugging at her mask. He quickly rushed to her side, grabbing both her arm and the mask. When she calmed at his touch, he pushed the mask back on, preventing her from pulling it away on instinct. Since it seemed like she hadn't breathed any of the poison yet, he turned to Fiyu, who huddled against herself. His glimpse of her soulhome revealed a slightly scorched barrier wall and he guessed that her senses might be entirely blinded.

There weren't any easy ways around it, so Theo approached her very gently. He started by touching her sleeve, letting her feel the slight movement. She flinched, head turning wildly in his direction, but then her arm moved closer. Theo touched her wrist gently and just held it for a moment, giving her something to focus on.

Gradually she returned to herself and gave him a slight nod before she pulled back. They'd taken a shock, but no permanent harm done. Nauda put her hands on her hips and stared at him, the "This had better be worth it" sentiment obvious in body language alone.

He raised a finger and then gestured for them to follow. The end of the corridor had been blasted apart, much of it covered in molten sublime materials. They were probably worth something to House Blacksilver, so he had Fiyu collect them while they searched through to the heart.

Near the core of the explosion, a few remnants of that power remained: solidembers, he believed they were called. Primarily useful to assist with ascensions, so he divided what they found between himself and Fiyu. Not invaluable, but if he had been able to find anything else particular to him, he wouldn't have even complained.

The real treasure lay at the core: a single seed lay in a blast crater, turning the rock molten underneath it and releasing dark steam. Theo wasn't sure about its name, but he knew that sublime plants growing in such formations were always immensely powerful.

It certainly wasn't compatible with his soulhome, and too bright for Fiyu's, so Nauda bent to absorb it. The surface clearly burned her hands, but she pushed through the pain, forcing herself to absorb the coal. When it entered he felt her cantae ripple dangerously until she managed to contain the sublime material within her storage chamber. That one would certainly serve her well, when she could survive it.

That accomplished, they'd cleared out the entire pit, even more thoroughly than he had on his first visit to the Chasm. Theo returned to pick up Senka, but met her wandering in their direction, once again returned to her muted state. All four of them retraced their steps to the original tunnel until they emerged from the hole just beside the river. Though the current still rushed past them with lethal force, he was glad to see it, and Nauda seemed even more so.

"Finally." She pulled off her mask as soon as possible and breathed deeply. "I swear the mists were starting to get into my head. We don't need to go into one of those again, do we?"

Theo shook his head. "Even if we found another pit, it would only contain similar materials."

"I believe this is enough by most standards," Fiyu said, watching him quietly. "We have rare sublime materials suitable for our blueprints as well as those valued by House Blacksilver. If we were to retreat now, no one would blame us. However..."

Nauda groaned and ran a hand through her hair. "You're not going to let us go, are you, Theo?"

He began finding another path alongside the river, grinning back at them. "If there's ever been a time for ambition, it's now."