“Ok, that’s a bigger problem.” Caeden acknowledged, looking up at the island-sized ethership overhead. It was the single biggest ship he’d ever seen, even among the ancient collection on the dragon continent. “Obviously, we need to figure out how to deal with that.”

As he spoke, another problem decided to crop up as if to spite him. Caeden had just freed them from the glaive’s suppression when a Revolution suppression field slammed down on them, confining their shrouds within their bodies. It was marginally better than dealing with the glaive’s style of suppression, since they could still use their shrouds for infusion.

On the negative side, this field worked on Caeden just fine, unlike the glaive. Blade Forge couldn’t escape it.

“Oh, come on!” He threw his hands up. “Can’t I get a break?!”

Lily looked at him with sympathy while Cat, Erik, and Asherta just shrugged ambivalently. They wouldn’t have to figure out how to deal with this, after all. That was his and Lily’s job. They just got to sit back and hit things when they said to.

“I think this won’t be as bad as you’re thinking, Cae,” Lily spoke up. Looking to her, Caeden saw her nodding toward his Entrance Blade.

“Oh. Oh!” Caeden nodded. He looked behind himself, and sure enough, the Blade Throne was still there as well. The suppression field wasn’t able to cancel an Incarnation that was already active, and the Entrance Blade was a piece of ethertech rather than something operated by his shroud. They could still enter the Blade Forge. Even better, things could leave the Forge as well.

Did you get all that? Caeden asked mentally.

“How could I not? Things got pretty wild out there for a minute.” Father laughed. “Hold on; I was looking at this glaive. Seeing it with our senses here in the Forge has led to some wonderful insights.”

Caeden tapped into Father’s part of their shared mind. Technically they were the same consciousness, but Father was operating at many times Caeden’s speed because of the time dilation within the Forge. That made processing his stream of consciousness almost impossible unless he stopped everything he was doing and meditated.

Together, Caeden and Father poked at the information they were able to pull from the glaive. Meanwhile, a Bladeborne floated out of the Entrance Blade. This particular Bladeborne looked like a collection of scientific instruments connected by bands of fluorescent green energy.

“Oh my, this is so interesting. I’m glad Father sent me out here! Oh, the first recorded instance of contact with outside organisms, how amazing!”

“Lycord, you’ve met all of us.” Lily smiled, reminding the eccentric scientist. “Several times.”

“Of course, I would not forget it! But that was within the confines of the Forge! While some of us were part of the initial experiments on surviving this environment, we never encountered other sapient life while in this universe before. A momentous moment!” Lycord explained, several of his instruments moving a whirring as they recorded everything about the surroundings.

“That’s nice, but didn’t Father send you out here for a reason? I believe we’re under a bit of a time crunch.” She watched the ships above warily. It was a sizable force, even without the island-sized centerpiece. There was no way of telling when those ships would attack.

“Oh, quite.” Lycord’s energy flashed a Bladeborne equivalent of a nod. “I’ve already completed the necessary survey of the suppression field’s properties and sent the data back to the Forge for cataloging and inspection. Hopefully a response should be along shortly.”

“Oh! Well…good.”

Everyone stood around awkwardly for a moment as Lycord continued to take readings of the environment. Caeden, even as he reviewed Father’s memories, couldn’t help but notice him slowly drifting ever closer to the unconscious form of Harmon.

“Actually, that one is supposed to go into the Forge, Lycord. If you could get someone working on a prison, that would be great. Maybe Matteus?” He spoke up, hoping to get his wayward child back on track. Luckily, it worked like a charm.

“We’re taking one of these back?!” Lycord sounded both incredulous and excited. “I thought none would enter the Forge who were not a part of your team.”

“That was before I realized that a realm where I have near-infinite power and more time than anyone could ever need might make a great place to store dangerous things.” Caeden laughed. “Though that one isn’t dangerous anymore since Cat and Erik sealed his shroud. He’s just a normal human now.”

“Are we allowed to…research…him?” Lycord asked like he was expecting to be told no.

“Sure, go nuts.” Caeden shrugged. “Nothing you do to him will kill him while he’s in the Forge, and I think he could do with actually contributing something of value to a society instead of tearing everything down for his own selfishness.”

“Awesome!” Flashing sporadically like an excited child, Lycord picked Harmon up with several implements and rushed through the Entrance Blade. And so went the Vast king, never to return to the Starry Sea. Caeden had no doubt his next few centuries would be unpleasant at best as the Bladeborne poked and prodded him for information on humans.

“Well, I’m glad that’s over.” Erik flopped down on the floor of the arena, staring up at the ships overhead. “So, what next, boss man? We’re not doing much with our auras suppressed.”

“Give it ten minutes.” Caeden shrugged half-heartedly, only partially paying attention to the outside world. The rest of him was working furiously alongside Father and a team of Bladeborne. Even if the only thing he was doing was adding his mental acuity to Father’s, it still helped.

“What are you-”

“Erik, shush.” Lily interrupted. “He’s obviously working on something, and you’re not helping.”

“Fine, I just wanted to know what was going on. This field makes my scalp itch.” Erik scratched at his head aggressively.

“Right, that’s fair.” Lily nodded. Everyone knew how bad a time Erik had the last time they were in a suppression field.

“I’m good,” Erik said, catching onto her thoughts. “Healing kinda takes a lot of the pressure off. Even if something happens and I can’t block it, I can just recover.”

“Oh! Well, that’s great!” Erik didn’t talk much about his mental state, so Lily was surprised that he was so forthcoming. Erik wasn’t a fan of showing any kind of weakness or even acknowledging danger in general.

Minutes passed as the team waited for Caeden to finish what he was doing. During that time, the audience began to stir, along with the Empires team. It seemed the effects of the glaive were beginning to wear off. To no one's surprise, emotions ranged from scared to confused to angry. A lot of that anger was coming from one person in particular.

“WHERE IS MY FATHER!!” Harmon’s son yelled. Only Lily actually knew what his name was. He had come around a bit faster than the others and was already on his feet, making threatening gestures.

Asherta was having none of it.

“Shut.” A fist slammed into his gut, knocking the breath out of him before he could even respond. “No talking for you. No yelling either. Be quiet, or I will make you quiet.”

Asherta had decided to make herself significantly older than them, somewhere in the thirties to forties, for an unshrouded. Her blue hair and scales were no less vibrant for her apparent age. In fact, she looked all the stronger. This was something they’d figured out in the Forge. Asherta’s dragon heritage affected her biology and granted her one of dragonkind’s most potent gifts.

She grew stronger the more she aged.

Adding in her new abilities from her Hoard splinter, Asherta was many times the warrior she had been before. She had also mastered Central Common, along with several other languages, much like the rest of the group. When you have centuries of time and are at a multilingual gathering, learning other languages seemed prudent. Though the added knowledge had done nothing to change her stoic nature. Asherta talked when she felt like it, which wasn’t often.

Harmon’s son dropped to the floor, coughing and trying to breathe as best he could. That seemed to stop anyone else from acting up. Unsurprising, considering Caeden’s team were the only ones acting like they had any idea what was going on.

“Done!” Caeden jumped up, walking over to the open Entrance Blade and sticking his hand through. Pulling it back out, he was holding five armbands of steely silver. “Everyone put these on. I’m pretty sure those ships are done getting into position.”

At his word, everyone in the arena except for his friends looked up, seeing that the ethership armada above had stopped moving and the hole in the sky they’d come through had begun to shrink.

“I still really want to know how they managed a portal like that.” Caeden frowned, looking at the swirling energy mass. “Cat, you noticed first. Was there anything that stood out about it when it started?”

“Oh,” His tan-skinned teammate paused while slipping on the band he’d handed her. “Well, I actually looked at it in the soul plane. That’s how I noticed it. You know those giant chains attached to the pillar?”

“Yeeeees?” Caeden didn’t like where this was going.

“Well, one of them moved.” She pointed at the portal. “To there.”

“That is very, very bad.”

“Yeah,” She slid the armband on. “I figured.”

Once everyone had the armbands on, they felt the ether inside cycle before wrapping around their bodies. Suddenly, the suppression field seemed to disappear. They could use their shrouds completely unimpeded.

And not a moment too soon. The second everyone had their armbands on, the roar of an explosion swept over the arena, accompanied by a brilliant flash of light so bright that it blinded many in the stands. This was accompanied by the etherships above finally opening fire, reigning down on the island with ether cannons and explosives of all kinds.

Devastation never reached their arena as Erik waved his hand, and a net of purple chains wove into the air above them, blocking the rain of attacks.

“Where did that explosion come from?” Caeden asked.

Cat muttered a phrase and hoped on the undead Nightmare she summoned as it emerged from its portal. Galloping into the sky while staying just below Erik’s shield, she scanned the city. “The meeting hall! They blew the whole thing up!”

Caeden winced. If only he’d been a little faster…But that was a pointless thought. They couldn’t have prevented that explosion without their shrouds, and it took him as long as it did to get them past the suppression field. There was no changing that.

“We need to deal with this. All of this.” Lily spoke up. She was flying herself, her body hazy and indistinct as she formshifted into a cloud. “We’re the only ones with working shrouds in the whole city.”

Caeden nodded, mind running a mile a minute. This time, Father lent his support to Caeden as they worked together on the issue. It only took moments to come up with a plan using Father’s time-dilatated thoughts.

“Cat, you can cover the most ground, and your undead are tough and expendable. You needed to get on recovery and rescue work. Lily, Asherta, you two are the strongest in aerial combat; I need you to get up there and get that armada off our backs, or we’re not getting anything else done.” He shot out rapid-fire commands, still working in his head and in the Forge.

“There are millions of people on the island; we can’t hide them all in this arena.” Lily looked around the space. “We’d be lucky to get a few thousand.”

“Yup, working on it.” Caeden nodded.

“How?”

He pointed at the Entrance Blade in lieu of a response.

“Are you sure about that? Exposing the Forge could be bad for us later on.” Caeden could see the concern in her eyes.

“It’s either that or let them die, so I guess this is what we’re doing. Me and Father will figure it out. The kids are helping.” Caeden shrugged. What else was he going to do? There was nowhere safe on the island to hide people.

“Ok, if you’re sure.” She didn’t look all that convinced, but Caeden let it slide. He knew that Lily was probably more protective of him than he was of himself. She wasn’t doubting his decision. Her concern was heartwarming, if anything.

“What am I doing then?” Erik asked.

“I need you here with me as triage and defense. You’ll heal the people Cat’s undead bring in and make sure we don’t get blown up.”

“Aww,” Erik pouted. “I always get the boring jobs.”

“It’s not my fault you’re the most suited for them.” Caeden laughed in spite of the dire situation and the immense pressure he felt. Or maybe because of it. This was, by far, the worst odds they’d ever had to deal with, but Caeden couldn’t help but feel a little confident. They weren’t the same people they’d been before.

Now, they could stand on their own, even among the greatest shrouded in the world.

“Ok, team,” Caeden clapped his hands, several more Entrance Blades appearing. “Let’s go to work.”