They were greeted by a squeal as they entered the main hall, followed by a young girl running as fast as her short legs allowed her, who then threw herself at David at the end of her run. “BIG BROTHER!”

  David smiled and caught her in his arms, lifting her up as she flung her little arms around his neck and squeezed as hard as she could.

  He could do nothing about the smile that had taken over his face. “Hey Annabelle. I'm happy to see you, too.”

  “Hmmm!” The little girl said, rubbing her face against him. She eventually pulled back and looked at the other visitors. “Hi Niala! Hi Jordo! Hi Angeline! Hi, Mr. Cornelius!”

  Her greetings halted as she laid her eyes on Rinka, staring at her with furrowed brows. She eventually tapped on David's arm, signalling him to let her down, which he did.

  Straightening her dress and posture, she faced the newcomer as she dialed back her smile. “Hello, Miss. I am Annabelle Wardenfel. It is a pleasure to meet you.” She greeted with a polite curtsy.

  Rinka stared at the little girl for a few seconds before answering. “I, huh, I am Rinka Alwardn, Magister of the Luminous Reign. I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Annabelle smiled and curtsied. “Welcome to our house, Ms. Alwardn.”

  Someone at the back of the hall cleared their throat, catching everyone's attention. Jacob was there with his wife, Agatha, waiting side by side near a table.

  Annabelle meeped, froze for a second, and turned on the spot, walking back to her parents as fast as she could without actually running.

  Jacob watched his over-excited daughter rejoin his side, casting a critical eye on her.

  David was about to scowl at his father, but caught a glimpse of something that gave him pause; a critical eye, yes, but not anger or reproach.

  Not the kind of stares he had gotten used to in his youth. This was simply a father who thought his daughter could have done better, nothing more.

  Still a long way from being a father who just smiled at his daughter's youthful antics, but... for Jacob, this was a massive improvement.

  David's group resumed their approach, stopping a dozen paces away; the polite distance for family friends and familiar guests coming to greet their noble hosts. The ghost of a brow's twitch on his parents' faces told him his choice of distance hadn't gone unnoticed.

  Greetings were exchanged, introductions done, and everyone was then invited to sit down to discuss the reason for their visit. The runner Cornelius had sent a few bells ago to announce their visit had only carried a vague letter, and so David and Niala began their story from the beginning, when they met Caleb.

  Jacob and Agatha caught onto the scheme quickly and delved into the details, asking question after question, not wanting to make assumptions.

  David and Niala answered the more general ones, but soon turned to Angeline for the more pointed inquiries.

  By the end of their meeting, a full bell later, the discussion had been squarely between the nobles and Angeline, everyone else simply listening or answering questions sent their way.

  While the overall plan did not change following the discussion, Jacob did declare he would support David and Niala's claim to the best of his ability.

  Angeline smiled at that; although she had expected this, having the support of a major house was still a major stone in their hand for the coming negotiations with the crown.

  Access to the Royal Archives was also promised, and a petition to meet the king would be sent in the morning. Coming from the Wardenfel main family, Jacob suspected it wouldn't take more than a few days before they would receive a reply, even if the meeting itself might be a few weeks off.

  Hopefully, this would give them the time they needed to find something of value in the archive to support their claim.

  They also chose to reveal to David's family the result of the resonance test with Rinka. Intrigued, Jacob insisted on having their own manalogists run the test, unwilling to completely trust a single source.

  Rinka and David were asked to follow Jacob and Agatha to the family's resonance testing facility.

  The rest of the group was relocated to the same guest house that Niala and David had stayed in during their previous visit. There, Niala sat her father down and made him a proposition.

  The idea had germinated after she had promised Sabi she would find a means for her to travel the world; what better way to do so than as the core of an airship? Especially one mostly made of metal, which could support the depth of enchantments the consciousness needed.

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  She made her presentation to her father and Angeline, explaining as much as she could.

  Cornelius stroked his chin, his ears erect. “You want to... implant a golem into the Alchemical Star?”

  Niala shook her head. “Not quite; a consciousness.”

  “I'm not sure I follow. Aren't they the same thing?”

  “It's, well... you know how Jordo has a mind so advanced that he might as well be a living person?”

  Cornelius dipped his head. The golem had been a surprise to him when they'd met at her daughter's wedding. While he knew that golems with similarly advanced minds existed, they were either unique masterpieces or relics from ages past. At least, that was true for golems found in Amberfall; the most common models were simpletons, able to understand and execute a limited number of commands according to the type of minds they had. Fighting golems could fight, maid golems could clean, majordomo golems could greet guests and show them around, and so on.

  But Jordo seemed to be able to do just about anything. As his daughter had said, he might as well have been a living person.

  Niala nodded back. “From what I understand, what the Luminous Reign called a consciousness is, at its core, just like a golem's mind, but with vastly superior cognitive abilities. It has more memory, it can think faster, process more input, and so on.” She looked to Jordo. “Am I close?”

  The golem's eye flashed once as he dipped his head. “You are mostly correct, madam. There are a few nuances, such as the imposed principle of equivalent exchange, which most golems do not have, but yes. For the most part, a consciousness is a... super- no, mega mind.”

  She smiled a thanks at the golem and returned her sight to her father. “So, yes. If we ignore why I want to try and do this, think of it this way: the consciousness could be connected to every part of the Alchemical Star. It would be able to help the crew run the ship, as it would know exactly what everyone was doing in real time. It could help calculate paths, keep track of supplies, note deficiencies or needed repairs, and so on.” She explained.

  Her father looked uncertain, mulling the potential advantages and issues of her proposal.

  Until Angeline butted in. “Niala, that is such an interesting proposal. Of course, a great amount of thought needs to be dedicated to this decision. After all...” She let her eyes pull toward her father. “This would result in quite the unique and exceptional airship, more so than it already is. Why, I do reckon everyone would be talking about it for whole seasons, if not years to come.”

  She fully turned her head toward her father, who had suddenly gone very still. “Wouldn't that be bothersome, dear father? To have everyone beg you for a tour of your airship?” She asked with a mock pout.

  Cornelius blinked as his ears twitched. “Ah? Hrrm, yes, yes, it would be most bothersome to have so much... attention... hmmm.”

  He fell silent once more, but this time, it was not indecision on his face.

  He made a grand show of retiring to his room to ponder the proposal some more. He came back out after exactly twenty minutes, announcing that the advantages outweighed the pitfalls by a small margin and that he would thus proceed with the proposal.

  Niala and Angeline both smiled, for related, but different, reasons.

  The proposal, while very interesting, was not a simple thing. They would need actual experts, of all kinds, to go over the proposal and its requirements and come up with an actionable plan, but from her estimate, Niala had outlined three major hurdles.

  For one, Niala wasn't even certain the Alchemical Star was big enough to contain all of the enchantments that Sabi's core needed. There was also the question of available mana, with the airship's current fins and sails producing barely enough for it to be functional. Finally, if Sabi were to be as useful as she'd said she could, the airship would also require perception enchantments dispersed throughout its entire structure.

  She and David had also discussed potential solutions, and she offered them to her father.

  The supporting enchantments, as they had seen at the Radiant Archive, had been both complex and massive. They couldn't do much for the complexity, but for the amount of space they required, there might be something. They guessed that the physical size of the engravings had more to do with resilience than actual function. A smaller, shallower script was inherently less durable than the deep gouges they had observed. Maybe, since they weren't designing something to last for thousands of years, they could do with more compact enchantment, which would allow plenty of them to be added to the hull.

  As for the complexity, that just meant they needed people who were very skilled at complex enchantments. David had thought about asking his family's arcanosurgeons to weigh in. After all, imbuements were just like enchantments, only a lot more complex, and done on a different canvas.

  For the ship's mana gathering ability, they had to think a bit outside the box, or rather, outside the world. They had asked, and been told, that the fins and sails used were the very best that Cornelius had been able to find in the known world. They had cost a fortune, and were nearly twice as efficient as anything available on the market.

  But David and Niala knew of a society which had vastly superior mana-gathering equipment: the Fairlands. There should be a way to order custom-built fins and sails, built using the fairies' advanced magitech.

  For the last problem, that was something for airship engineers to look at. It didn't hold any particular problem, beyond just a lot of refitting work.

  If every issue could be overcome, they would not only provide the Alchemical Star with all the mana it would ever need but also offer Sabi a way to actually travel the world and interact with a crew every day. A crew which, Niala hoped, would come to see the lonely consciousness as a comrade, and not a tool.

  Heh. She'd made sure of it. There was no way she was leaving her friend Sabi to be ostracized by insensitive crewmen.

  If needed, she'd give them an inclusivity course.

  No, better be safe. They would be getting an inclusivity course ahead of time.

  David and Rinka came back just around dinner time. The resonance test had given the same befuddling results; as far as the manalogists could tell, the woman was only a few generations removed from the Wardenfels.

  They did have an additional surprise once they had included Annabelle in the tests. The resonance had shown them to be closely related, as a child would be to a parent, giving the same sort of results, if slightly weaker, that Agatha and Jacob had with Annabelle or David.

  It was a mystery to everyone involved. One that the family's manalogists would investigate, but which bore no immediate issue with the plan, and as such was left as a curiosity.

  That aside, Jacob had told David that he would be granted as full an access as he could have without special dispensation from the crown, and that his access would be registered with the Archive within two days.

  The patriarch also had one last surprise for them; he would be accompanying them when the time came to meet the king, or his representative, and present their plan.

  When asked why, he had simply said that the scheme offered great potential for the Wardenfel family and had refused to elaborate further.

  David had noticed his mother's mouth fighting a smile during that exchange.

  He wasn't sure what it meant.