To say the glyph worked was an understatement.

They'd done two tests. The first of them was done with Vex's own Sign of Research, to make sure that the new glyph — or sign, Vex hadn't really considered what to call these things that were a mix of the two — would do what they thought it did; there was a slight concern that casting it would consume a reality shard, and those were in limited supply at the moment.

That concern was quickly addressed when the skill fed the information back to him. He was once again reminded that the Sign claimed there was a cost to using it... but he hadn't identified what that cost was yet. Something more than mana, almost certainly.

Private Relay — Glyph/Sign Combination

This combined glyph restricts all forms of communication to those whitelisted by the user, both outgoing and incoming. Any hostile form of information transfer will be blocked. This protection extends to written, verbal, and mental forms of communication, as well as any other means by which an idea might be communicated.

On casting, this glyph will create #### charms, which can be worn to render the wearer invulnerable to unwanted communication.

This glyph will cost one reality shard. Charms produced will ##########, lasting ### as long as ####### # #### ######.

##########.

There was a moment while interpreting the glyph where a sudden static burning filled the connection Vex shared with whatever within the mana held all this information — it was enough to make the lizardkin wince, stumbling backwards. Derivan caught him, and it took a moment or two before he could hear well enough to realize that the armor was asking him if he was alright; Vex had to swallow twice before he could answer.

"I'm— fine," he said, grimacing slightly at the strange hoarseness of his voice. Maybe this was the cost that had been implied. Maybe there were gaps in what the mana knew, and if he ran into them, it would hit him hard.

That was... concerning.

"What happened?" Derivan asked him, still worried, and Vex sighed.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "I think if the information that my sign tries to retrieve is incomplete, there's some kind of backlash. That one wasn't too bad, but..."

There was the possibility that it would be worse in the future. He wondered if the system's errors were a way to filter through that kind of backlash; maybe there was a reason for him to redirect that information into system boxes for display.

But Vex dismissed that concern for now, directing his attention instead to the knowledge he'd gained. The fact that the glyph operated by creating charms was helpful; it meant that they could attempt the spell now, and those charms would likely still protect them by the time the Wisfield meeting came around.

On the other hand, there was the possibility that the charms could be stolen. There was the still-fuzzy information about the charms, that implied they would only last a certain amount of time, or maybe only a certain number of uses.

"Well?" Misa raised an eyebrow. "Does it work?"

"Yes," Vex said, and then reconsidered and amended his statement. "It should. It'll make some charms that should do the trick, but we should still test it."

"Are you sure you do not want to do it yourself?" Derivan asked him, his voice low. "I feel you have earned this."

"Thank you." Vex gave Derivan an earnest sort of smile. "But I want to see you cast, now."

"I see." Derivan sounded vaguely embarrassed, if that was possible; Vex had never heard that from the armor before. He stood up, his head threatening to scrape against the ceiling, and picked up the reality shard that Vex had left on the ground.

And then without wasting a moment more, he began to weave.

There was something about Derivan's movements that were different when he cast — the light in his helmet dimmed to almost nothing, like the magic that animated him was being supplanted with something else. His movements seemed to flow in a way his constituent metal really shouldn't have been able to.

There was something about it all that was akin to a dance.

Vex watched, enraptured, as Derivan went through the movements to draw the glyph he had created. The mana in the room gathered around Derivan, almost as if it was curious about what he was doing. It didn't run the way it always did when a system spell was cast. It didn't interfere with his spell, either.

Some of it even entered his gauntlet, voluntarily, joining him in creating.

In the midst of swirling mana, holding a glowing shard of reality, Derivan completed the last part of the glyph; as he had drawn, the shard had diminished, fragments dispersing into the glowing symbol like he was drawing with chalk. By the time he was done, the shard but a single fragment.

And then that, too, dissipated.

The Relay symbol hung in the air for a moment, and the mana surrounding it rushed to meet it, like it was overjoyed to meet a new friend. There was a meeting between that ambient mana and the mana in the symbol.

In that meeting, those small fragments of reality stirred, and made it something more real than before.

Vex didn't have the same senses that Derivan had. He did feel the oddness in the magic, the way it felt like it had suddenly gained substance to it; he felt his skills flicker in response, a few of them resonating curiously. There was something he could learn here — but almost as soon as it happened, almost as soon as he realized he could do anything at all, the feeling faded.

And so did the glyph.

In its place were nine — nine small objects shimmered with the same prismatic fractals as the original reality shard. They were shaped differently, each a circle with a closed spiral within. Convenient for stringing onto a string, perhaps, though Vex doubted that the magic had been considering convenience when it had been crafting them.

No. The charms followed the pattern of mana that had coalesced around Derivan as he drew. That was a decision the mana had made on its own.

Not for the first time, Vex wondered exactly how alive the mana was.

"That's... a lot of charms," Misa commented after a moment. She reached forward gingerly, as if worried the little spiral of stone would shock her — and when it didn't, she held it critically up to an eye. "Seriously. Maybe a little too many charms."

"It's better to have backups?" Sev phrased it like a question, eyeing the charms like they were going to explode.

Vex stared.

Something clicked.

"They're not going to blow up!" he complained, scowling.

"It's true," Misa said, nodding at Sev. "It was Derivan that cast the spell, not Vex."

"I mean, he still made the spell," Sev said, giving Vex a playful grin. "Maybe we should just make sure?"

"Oh by the gods," Vex muttered, burying his face into his hands.

"I am sure it will work," Derivan said, giving Vex a friendly, encouraging sort of nudge, though it mostly just made Vex curl up even more. "You only need Misa to wear the charm, right?"

"Yes." The words were muffled. "Then hold the Drunkard's Beard up to her. Have her eat a little bit of it, even."

"Eat it?" Misa said, her tone somehow haughty and affronted — a weird tone to hear coming from Misa, no matter that she was mocking the nobles. There was a faint clink as she strung the charm through, tying it around her neck. "I couldn't possibly dream of — nope, fuck that, can't do it. Gimme it."

Vex rapidly pulled his face from his hands just in time to catch Misa tearing a — thankfully small — chunk of Drunkard's Beard off the sample he'd collected and swallow it. And then she made a face.

"Tastes kinda gross," she said.

"You're not really supposed to eat it," Vex muttered. Eating the moss actually diminished the effect; whatever allowed it to tap into the mechanisms the system used for mental skills — though that was an assumption on his part, he reminded himself — did not survive contact with the stomach acid of most species. "You just need to hold it close to your head. Or wherever your brain is."

"Then why did you tell me to eat it!" Misa made an indignant face, spluttering out the remnants of moss on her tongue.

"I didn't tell you to eat it," Vex protested. "I told Derivan to make you eat it. Not the same thing!"

Misa's eyes narrowed dangerously at him, and he swallowed. He was pretty sure this was just banter.

Mostly sure this was just banter.

To his relief, Misa grinned. "Whatever," she said. "Point is, the charm thing works. Didn't feel a thing." She held it up to her head, just to make sure. "Yeah, nope."

"Want to take off the charm?" Sev said. "You know, just to make sure that it's not the moss that's faulty."

"That's a great idea, Sev." Misa ripped off the charm, clearly about to say something else — the moss was still held up to her head, like it was an ice pack. Instead of continuing, though, she wobbled slightly instead. "Whoa." She looked delighted. "This is like... full buzz. Instant. Dang. How come you didn't... share this before?"

"I wouldn't dare damage the hallowed process of getting irresponsibly drunk by letting you skip steps," Vex said dryly, and then tried to hop up to grab the moss.

He failed, obviously. Misa was so dang tall compared to him. And also jumping to get it put his head dangerously close to the moss.

"Derivannn," he whined instead, and the armor chuckled. Reaching out, he plucked the moss away from Misa, much to her protests — though she didn't do much to stop him.

"Here you go," he said, gently depositing the sample back into Vex's tailbag. "I wonder where I would have to hold it, for it to affect me?"

"Near your core, maybe?" Vex glanced over Derivan. It hadn't actually occurred to him before that Drunkard's Beard could likely affect even Derivan...

Actually. That seemed like a potential avenue of research. If he could figure out how to do whatever the moss did — a project that veered dangerously close to figuring out the Wisfield Principle for himself — then he could help Derivan taste food on his own terms.

That was something worth studying, right? Once there wasn't some sort of ongoing crisis... which might be never. So maybe just in his free time.

"Perhaps." Derivan hummed, but didn't seem inclined to test it — and it was late enough in the day that Vex didn't feel like pressing the matter.

"Do we want to discuss strategies for dealing with Wisfield in tomorrow's meeting?" Sev glanced out of the window. "It's getting pretty late. I figure we'll do that last, get some rest, and then hopefully Rekka will have scheduled the meeting bright and early so we can get it out of the way."

"Might as well," Misa agreed with a sigh. "Hey, if Wisfield is annoying, do you think I can block conversational attacks?"

Sev laughed, then looked worried. "Please don't try. I'm pretty sure the way you block an insult is by punching them in the face."

"I would never do that," Misa said, tossed her mace in her hand casually. "Never."

Vex eyed her, and decided he was very glad she was on their side. So glad he went to give her a hug, which she seemed surprised by, but she smiled a genuine smile and hugged back.

So he probably wasn't going to get maced!

With that, the four of them settled in to talk. It was... a drier conversation than even Vex would have liked, and he found himself drifting off, before long, leaning on Derivan's arm yet again.

Rekka had, fortunately, managed to schedule the meeting for early in the morning. He'd even tried to do them one better by asking the Guildmaster for permission to use the neutral meeting room, so Wisfield would at least be suppressed the way they had been in the first meeting — but that had been a dead end. It was in use, apparently, and Wisfield refused to use it besides.

Which meant they now had to meet up with whatever nobles Wisfield chose to talk to them with.

This was fine. They'd planned for this. They knew what Wisfield could do, even, an advantage that the people negotiating with them didn't always have — and they had a counter. That was something almost no one had.

Even with all of that, though, Vex didn't expect the people that walked in through the door, as they sat in their corner of their meeting room. He froze.

Two Wisfield representatives he didn't recognize, in the white-gold Wisfield colors. And then black-red, the colors of the Ashion house, wrapped around one adult lizardkin man, and the tiny, fragile shoulders of a four-and-a-half year old lizardkin child.

Vex's hands tightened into fists and didn't let up, even when Derivan's hand clasped lightly over his own.