"It's going to take both of us."

Sophia twisted to stare at Dav. Only the resistance of the false-rock seal she couldn't see against the rod prevented her from swinging it wildly. "Why? I should be able to hold it out and bridge the gap that way."

Dav shook his head. "You can't see exactly where it is. I can. We should also minimize how much you have to do inside the rock; you said it hurt more the longer your finger was inside."

Sophia shook her head. "You can't touch it."

"Othala said both of us looked resistant to her," Dav disagreed. "We both need to be careful, but I'm not going to just stand here while you risk yourself to protect me when I don't need the protection."

Sophia groped for a counterargument. "It won't take long, I just have to set it in place. I can use Magical Translucence to reduce the impact on myself. At least, I think it will reduce the impact. Scaley should help too, so I really should be fine."

Scaley

Call upon your heritage to gain the scales of your ancestors.

Magical Translucence

You can choose to diffuse magic that strikes you, reducing its effect on you and spreading a weakened effect over a wider area.

Now that she thought about it, Scaley might be the better Ability for this. The scales of an Arcane Dragon were naturally resistant to the Origin, which she was pretty sure was what was on the other side of the barrier. That didn't mean she shouldn't use both. The Origin didn't hurt, which meant the problem, at least for her, was the interface itself.

"All right," Dav said doubtfully, "But if you have trouble, back out and we'll try together."

Sophia nodded. She really thought he was overstating how difficult it would be and was worried about nothing, but it was definitely nice that he cared. Even if he was a little overprotective sometimes, she really shouldn't complain.

She was doing the same thing, after all; Othala had said he was resistant or something like that. Sophia just didn't quite trust it because she knew he was hurt by the Origin when he went through it originally. Sure, he'd learned to cope and even come out stronger on the other side, but that didn't mean he needed to expose himself to it again.

Scales manifested along her arms as she triggered Scaley. They were predominantly purple with hints of other colors, mostly blues but some shaded a bit more towards pink or even peach. The edges of many of the scales were lightly lined with a silvery color and they shone brightly in the magical light of the interspace. Sophia smiled; those scales looked a lot like her father's, even if they were more delicate.

She let them extend until they covered her arms up to near her elbows. They didn't seem to want to spread much past her wrist, which was probably reasonable when she thought about it, even if it was unfortunate. Her father's scales avoided his hands, as well.

Sophia didn't expect much of a change when she triggered Magical Translucence. She'd never combined it with Scaley before, but it wasn't very visually obvious when she used it. She was surprised when color seemed to wash over her scales, red and orange and green joining the blue and purple. The colors moved, slowly making their way across her arm as she watched.

It was a lot like watching light move through a prism, though it didn't form the rainbow she was used to. Of course, this was magic; magic wasn't nearly so easily divided into a single series of wavelengths as light was.

Her hands still looked normal. Well, hopefully Magical Translucence would still help. She hadn't tried to limit the Ability to the scales, so it ought to be affecting her hands as well as her arms.

"I'm ready," Sophia announced. It was better to keep everyone on the same page, even if she was acting alone.

She pushed the rod the rest of the way into the boulder she couldn't see. She knew she was far enough in when she felt the tingling pain of moving past the surface of the seal right from the end of her fist up her hand to her wrist. She'd guessed at least partly right; it did hurt less than the first time. It actually hurt a lot less once her arms were deep enough to be protected by both Abilities, though it felt really weird. She could vaguely feel both essence and mana swirling around her hands and the rod, almost like she was used to in the Origin but not quite.

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Her hands didn't hurt once they were far enough in, and that was enough to make Sophia confident she'd put the pieces together correctly. This was a connection through the Origin, as dangerous as that was. It meant there was a way home even if the Gateways didn't reach Earth; all she had to do was head to the Archons' home and hire someone to make a connection like this. It didn't have to be permanent, either, which ought to be easier. It wouldn't be cheap, but good work never was.

It was good to know she had options. It was less good to know that her options all required her to head through the Maze. It wasn't that she minded the Broken Lands, exactly; she simply missed home and wanted to be able to visit. Sophia was pretty sure that Dav's feelings were stronger than hers. She at least knew her parents were safe. He didn't.

Sophia lowered the rod inside the rock. She hadn't felt it emerge from the other side, but she was pretty sure it was far enough ahead to be beyond the damaged part of the roadway. It was really annoying that she couldn't see it.

The rod went lower and lower easily enough, but when it reached what should have been the ground, it kept going. Sophia stared at it for a moment, then wiggled the rod to move the end above and below the apparent floor. It definitely wasn't catching on anything.

"You're holding it at the wrong angle. You're nowhere near the edge." Dav sent Sophia an image of what he saw as he spoke. In the image, a ghostly rock partially blocked his view of the rod, but it was obvious that Sophia was holding the rod at the wrong angle. She was too high and the rod-end was lower than she thought it was.

Sophia tried to move it up, but it still didn't hit the edge of the break the way she thought it should. She didn't feel anything other than the weight of the rod, the ache where her arms went through the false-rock seal, and the essence and mana of the Origin against her hands.

"I saw it that time." This time, Dav sounded concerned. "It looked like you brushed the edge and it tore the seal a little more. Xin'ri, is there anything in the records about that, about how we're supposed to set it up on the far side of the rock?"

"No." Sophia was certain that if she could turn around to look, she'd see Xin'ri shaking her head sadly. "The records assume the break is recent, so you can just set the rod down, then pour the connection-repair glue on it to link it to the main line connection. That's the crystals we've been stepping over. I can't even tell if there are crystals on the other side of the rock."

Sophia didn't think there were, but she knew the space was deceptive. Even if there weren't any, this was worth trying.

If she could get the darn thing to set down on the far side!

Dave set his back against the right-hand wall and squeezed past the boulder Sophia couldn't see. The boulder filled most of the floor space, but there was enough wall missing in the area that he was able to get past it without touching it.

On the other side of the boulder, Dav knelt down. "Hm, yeah, I see what the problem is from here. The back side isn't smooth like the front, it's jagged. I think you've been hitting one of the longer points. Uh, bring the point up and a little to the right. No, the other right, I mean your left."

Sophia tried to follow Dav's directions, but she kept overcorrecting. It was very difficult to aim the far end of an over two foot long pole when you couldn't see what you were aiming for. It seemed like being able to see the rod in its entirety ought to make it easier, but it didn't seem to. It was almost like she was skidding off something that kept pushing the rod to the side.

Wait, what if that was exactly the problem? What if the false-rock seal took force to penetrate from the inside and she was just sliding off it because she wasn't hitting it at a good angle? It didn't seem to take much from the outside, but then again, she had an easy place to push into the seal and she had far better control of the rod since it was close to her hands. "Dav? Is there a better spot I can punch through? I can reach farther in, then you can guide the rod down once it's out."

"It's worse than that," Dav said. "I think you are punching through the side, but every time you do, the rock seems to grow. That explains the spikes in the back and why I didn't see them before. Xin'ri, are you sure there's nothing about this?"

"Yeah," Xin'ri confirmed. "It's supposed to be really easy, even with an extended rod. I don't think Issvako expected one this big, though, so maybe that's the cause?"

"Eh. Figures," Dav answered. "There's always something. Right, so, Sophia? Hold it right there."

Sophia shot a look at Dav as she tried to hold the rod in position. Weirdly, that was harder than moving it. It was like there was something pushing on it. "Uh, it feels like something's pushing up on the rod, especially at the far end. I'm not sure why; a moment ago, it just felt like gravity but now it's trying to go more sideways than down."

"Currents or some sort. Maybe turbulence," Dav added. "It means the other side isn't empty, but we already knew that. I think I'm going to have to grab it and pull it through."

He paused for a moment, almost as if he was giving Sophia a chance to object. She knew better than that. Even after her scales and Magical Translucence, Sophia had an ache radiating up and down her arms from where they passed through the barrier. She didn't want Dav to suffer from that, but he was right: this wasn't working and he had both the best view of what was going on and the best chance to do something about it.

"I hope you can manage it quickly," Sophia said instead. "I'd really like to be done with this."

That made Dav smile. A moment later, he punched thin air. Weirdly, it seemed to break, releasing thin streamers of mana and essence. Sophia knew what had to have happened there, he'd damaged the false-rock seal so he could reach into it, but it was still weird to see reality coming apart like that.

She really needed to figure out how to see what was going on here. It bugged her that there was something there and all she saw was an absence, not a presence.

Dav reached forward and his hand seemed to stretch and blur, as if he was reaching across a huge distance instead of a handful of inches. He didn't seem to see the distortion; he simply grabbed the other end of the rod and moved it down towards the floor. Sophia followed his motion. It stung when her hands passed back through the barrier, but before long the entire rod looked like it was resting on the bare ground, with only the point on Sophia's side over a blue crystal.

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