Lucien spent the next stretch of days obsessing over the teleportation array.

Ever since he and Seraphine had stepped through that impossible mechanism in the hidden chamber, the thing had lodged itself in his mind like a challenge he had no intention of losing.

He wanted that kind of transfer.

Not the crude kind that shoved a traveler through unstable corridors and demanded they pretend dizziness was a fair price for speed.

He wanted elegance and the seamlessness of it.

And if he could reproduce even part of it properly, the implications for Lootwell were enormous.

Repair stations for the communication network would no longer need to remain vulnerable little outposts dependent on long-route transport. Future hidden branches across the world could be reinforced instantly.

Reaper and Eldran’s shadow routes could gain lawful anchors instead of relying only on stealth and geography. Merchant movement would become safer. Emergency extraction would become possible. Lucien himself could move from one end of the world to another far more cleanly than current methods allowed.

That mattered.

Because the old intercontinental teleportation arrays were still not repaired, and the seas remained a problem.

Even with the Void-walkers gone, the waters were not open.

The great things still remained there, too many and too strong and too deliberate in their positioning to be dismissed as random predators. They guarded the seas as though they had purpose.

Lucien did not like that.

The more he thought about it, the more a bad premonition settled in him.

Perhaps something remained sealed in the oceans. Perhaps more than one thing. Perhaps the seas were not merely dangerous, but assigned.

He could not act on that suspicion yet.

Not now.

For the moment, all he could do was prepare, strengthen, and build.

So he buried himself in the array.

It was more complex than he first hoped.

The structure was too layered, too deliberate, and too cleanly integrated with intent to be copied by superficial memory alone. Every section held purpose beyond the visible.

Lucien dissected it piece by piece.

He did not simply memorize its surface.

He entered it through Structural Insight and watched how the array treated displacement, how it anchored orientation, how it prevented drift, how it determined correct arrival without forcing the traveler through a corridor that could be interrupted or polluted.

It was not simple teleportation.

It was lawful agreement between points.

That realization pleased him immensely.

Then he began adapting it.

He had no intention of replicating the old form blindly. He needed a version suited to Lootwell’s future. So he adjusted the architecture.

At one point he even considered reducing the whole concept into talisman form.

That thought stayed with him.

A life-saving emergency transfer talisman. The idea was too useful to ignore, even if it would take far more time before he could miniaturize it safely.

So he kept working.

Day. Night. Then day again.

On the third day, he succeeded.

Lucien sat back from the finished design and smiled slowly.

Now Lootwell would serve as the main reference point.

He chose the Grand Crown of Lootwell as the location for the central chamber and built it beneath one of the deeper protected sectors where interference would be hardest and access easiest to control.

The main array room was broad enough to support not only individual travel, but mass transport in the future if necessary.

Lucien did not build for today alone.

He connected the chamber directly to his finest power sources: the merged Origin Core fragment.

That choice solved the largest practical problem immediately.

Energy would not be a temporary concern.

Lucien was just about to sketch the array design when his communication device rang.

He blinked, came out of his concentration, and activated it.

Kael’s message appeared.

They were returning.

The first wave of devices had sold out completely, though the spread had not yet covered the full breadth of Sareth. Supply had run dry long before that became possible. They had focused mostly on the middle sectors nearest Lootwell first, seeded influence there, and built demand outward.

Still, the result remained a success.

Lucien read the message once, then once more.

Then he stopped working on the chamber.

It would be better to wait for them first.

Thanks to the modified vehicle he had given them and the speed-and-stability improvements the Crafting Division had layered into it, their return did not take long. Reaper and Eldran’s mapped routes helped too, cutting risk away from the journey.

Lucien went to greet them personally.

The vehicle arrived under steady ward-light and came to a clean stop.

Kael came out first, as expected, and looked altogether too pleased with himself.

Which, to be fair, he had earned.

He crossed the remaining distance quickly and began speaking before Lucien could even ask.

"Young Lord, let me report this in the most dignified manner possible."

Lucien folded his arms.

"That sounds dangerous already."

Kael grinned.

"We won."

Lucien laughed softly.

"I had gathered as much from the messages."

"No, no, you gathered the clean version. I am here to deliver the artistic version."

That was also expected.

Edric came out after him, broad-shouldered and loud as always. Maxim and Ellen followed. Lucien’s gaze paused briefly on Ellen. He had worried about letting her roam while pregnant, but seeing her expression now, he found himself glad he had not stopped them.

Morveth and the others soon came out too.

Then another figure stepped out.

Lucien froze.

The newcomer was small.

A Serpentile child, at first glance. Lean, alert, watching everything with wary curiosity and a kind of oldness in the way he carried his silence that did not belong in such a young frame.

Lucien stared.

The familiarity hit him first. Then the impossibility.

Edric noticed immediately.

He scratched the back of his head and laughed a little too loudly in the way people did when they suspected they had either done something excellent or something catastrophically stupid and had not yet learned which.

"Nephew," he said, "before you say anything, I found this pitiful little Serpentile when I wandered farther than the others wanted me to. I liked the look in his eyes. Also, for a child, he talks like a retired old man. I brought him back. If that’s a problem, I can—"

"Uncle."

Edric stopped.

Lucien’s voice had shifted.

Then, to Edric’s immense relief, Lucien raised a big approving thumbs-up.

"You have terrifyingly good instincts," he said. "Thank you for bringing him here. I know him."

Edric blinked.

Then he exhaled hard and laughed.

"Well, then I guess I’m not rusty after all."

Lucien turned his full attention back to the child.

He used Inspect.

And the answer hit him with quiet force.

Moltsage. That title remained.

This was the same Moltsage who had helped them against Severance. The same Moltsage who had held on long enough for them to escape outer-space death and return safely to the Big World.

Lucien’s chest tightened.

So this was how he had lived.

Lucien sighed.

Seran had said Moltsage lived.

He had not said he would look like this.

Edric noticed the change in Lucien’s face and lowered his voice.

"Oh, right. Another thing. He doesn’t remember much. Maybe nothing useful at all."

That only made it heavier.

Still, Lucien did not let the moment collapse into grief in front of the others.

He turned and said simply, "You all should rest first. Report in full after. The Crafting Division will prepare the next batch soon enough."

Kael nodded. Maxim and Ellen agreed easily. Edric, catching more now than before, also stopped asking questions.

Lucien approached the boy after that and crouched to his level.

Moltsage looked at him without fear, only caution.

That was strangely worse.

Lucien smiled gently.

"You’re safe here."

The boy narrowed his eyes a little and said, in a voice too old for his face,

"I don’t remember asking to be in danger."

Lucien almost laughed.

Yes.

That was Moltsage.

Reduced.

But still there.

He brought him directly to Seren, the Serpentile.

The moment Seren saw the child, her whole body stiffened. Then recognition struck, and tears rose so quickly that she did not even have time to hide them before they spilled.

"Uncle Moltsage..."

The child turned toward her, studying her face with polite confusion.

"I don’t remember having a big niece."

That made Seren cry harder.

Lucien stood beside her in silence for a moment and let the reality settle where it had to.

Then he contacted Seran.

The answer came quickly.

When Lucien explained what Edric had found, Seran went quiet.

The real kind.

When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than usual.

"So he survived like that..."

Lucien understood the feeling exactly.

Seran let out a breath.

"He was my friend too."

Then, after a pause.

"It’s good that he was found."

He asked Lucien then whether Moltsage could remain under Lucien’s protection until strength and memory returned, if they ever did.

Lucien answered immediately.

"Of course."

It was not obligation.

It was gratitude. And something simpler than both.

Moltsage had helped them survive.

Now Lucien would return the favor.

When the transmission ended, Lucien looked again at the child who was now being quietly fussed over by a still-teary Seren while pretending he did not understand why.

The sight was strange.

A little funny. A little painful.

Lucien let out a slow breath.

Other things could wait.

Some things, when they returned from the edge of disappearance, deserved to be greeted properly first.