The tunnels were something that Taramo would not have bothered to remember but there were changes obvious even to him. Namely was the fact that the path he'd used to excavate for some mana to filter to his vault was collapsed a few minute's walk from the exit. This would be a reason to use his dwindling supply of mana to bypass, but the fact that another tunnel was excavated and exited right beside the cave in was suspicious.

  The tunnel was also covered by a locked grate made of a metal that looked startlingly similar to his wand in colour. He poked at the lock with a strand of mana and it was pulled into the metal.

  "Quite the conundrum," Taramo muttered as he cut off the tendril and thinned the new end of mana thread to a hair's width. He poked at a variety of locations on the lock, hoping for an easy oversight. There would have to be some weakness in a security ward, even the best were not impassable. In the worst case he could try to pick the lock, or get Ariwyn to do it.

  Normally magical security testing would be something Taramo would excel in, or at least enjoy the process. Having it block the only path out he knew and had the resources to use was growing in frustration.

  A pointer finger poked at his cheek, pulling him out from a growing cycle of discontent.

  "What?"

  Ariwyn scuttled down his arm and flopped onto the floor, then drew closer to the grate. She tapped at the rock right next to a bar. When that was insufficient for Taramo to understand she projected a word into his mind.

  (deep)

  He tactically retreated from his expedition to break the lock and instead investigated the bar, strengthening the mana tendril and pushing it into the rock. The bars barely went an inch into the rock, which had no particular strengthening.

  There would be no reason to pick the lock if he could pull out the whole grate. And here he had been trying to be gentlemanly in his bypass.

  "(Within ten meters of lock, designated here," he tapped the lock with his wand, "Cut off next spell if rock moves in an unexpected manner, approaching from above at any speed above this," he moved the wand down at a feather's falling speed, "and immobilize the rock until I am five meters away)"

  The contingency of the spell meant that it did not draw as much as it would need to work, though that meant it would draw more if he needed it. And if he needed it he'd have to cannibalize all the mana from the vault to attempt a blind jump.

  "(Break all rock within 3 inches of this metal," he tapped the bars, "into the size of gravel. Cease function if a previous spell commands)"

  A much greater draw. Taramo sat against the wall a stumble back from the grate as a crack rocked through the tunnel.

  The rock had been split into quarters and three beats from the first crack each chunk had been quartered. Taramo rested as his mana did this small work, spending much of the little mana he had left.

  Of the surface mana, the greatest source was the sun. The air and surface of the earth was empowered with mana and some little would sink deeper into the earth. It was less present in the deeper areas, which made any works much harder to do in the deeps, given that there was little mana to draw on. A bypass was to use a cave or dig a tunnel into the area that was deeper. If you didn't mind making a beacon to all mages that something secret existed here you could fan the mana rich surface air down, but he'd been content with the passive draw from his tunnel.

  Except his had been blocked and the grate seemed to have a spell that drew mana from the air, placing it somewhere he was unable to see. Or maybe it was a material unknown to his time which would passively draw the mana in. Keeping any of the mana that existed from being able to get down to him.

  Ariwyn patted his knee

  (Ready)

  "So it is" The last crack was not followed by another so he neared the grate. Since his spell had not moved the rock much the grate was still standing, so he'd have to push it over.

  With the last reserves of his mana he spun threads into rope that he anchored on his elbows, hands, shoulders, and hips. He would be able to recycle this mana into himself again so he could be more wasteful with his mana.

  If he was correct the mana would be more concentrated beyond that grate, though he would have to be quick and careful if the grate behaved as he believed.

  He prepared his hands at the opposite side of the grate to the lock, readying to pull and either remove the barrier or pivot it so he could get past. He reached out and-

  The metal burned cold.

  It definitely pulled mana from other sources so Taramo wrenched at the grate, feeling a lot of his resources pulled into the metal. But enough remained for the grate to budge.

  He pulled a second time and it started to pivot.

  The third time he managed enough space to Ariwyn could slip through, though that reached the end of his reserves. Taramo slumped beside the opening, feeling the warmth of a candle to someone freezing from the other side of the grate.

  Behind him in the direction of his vault he heard echoing screeches. Something had noticed the new flow of mana.

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  Taramo looked back, his muscles barely able to turn his neck, but Ariwyn ended her light and leapt onto him, trying to push him against the wall

  (Shhh)

  There were no echoing thumps of something running, but instead a whistling wind picked up and flowed into the space between the grate's security.

  A pale dead eye looked into Taramo's own and something stopped, many others pushing on beside him. The thing twisted, gazing into more than Taramo's eyes. Mana strange to Taramo but with a core of familiarity to him pushed against his own. This was probably part of his security system, but the ages turned them into something that hunts. Was this thing looking at Taramo like a master, or a meal?

  It prodded at him, looking at his eyes and calm mind dispassionately. Taramo felt frostbite pick at his face and fingertips. The thing might consume him, even unintentionally.

  Taramo moved, pulling out the wand that was held beneath his cloak. The thing turned its eye onto the wand, drawing ghostly fingers along the blackened wood and trying to pull it from Taramo's grasp.

  Instead the thing was pulled towards the wand, and Taramo used a trickle of mana he'd regenerated from the gap to hook onto the thing. It continued to pull at the wand and was drawn more in until Ariwyn was able to grasp onto the wand and use her greater control to seal it tight.

  It was an inconvenient place to rest but Taramo didn't have a better one so he listened to the clattering up ahead of the other things, wisps of his own crafted mana given some purpose, and the flow of mana was increased.

  He had nothing to keep time with so he didn't know if he'd drifted off to sleep but when he next focused on his mana it had ended up near his natural state, which was several times what it had been at his regeneration.

  He raised a pointer finger and made a small ball of light, a sun with a quarter the light of a candle. The light burned his eyes for a moment.

  Taramo saw black marks on the cave walls that were not there before, and the scattering of some of the gravel further ahead in the cave. Ariwyn was firmly held about the wand.

  "How long was I out"

  (Hour. One)

  "What about the wisp"

  Ariwyn squeezed the wand

  (Obedient. Now.)

  Taramo went through the process of tying strength into his muscles again but found once he'd been allowed access to his usual mana the grate was less greedy for his mana. Or maybe it had been sated? He'd return if he could learn nothing of this metal outside.

  Now through the gate Taramo let Ariwyn keep hold of the wand and sit on his shoulder. The passage started to climb significantly and he needed his hands to clamber up the way. He passed several old skeletons though he did not look too deeply into it since there seemed to be no wear of teeth on the bones and he was growing hungry himself.

  Then he arrived at a wooden door with the same black metal binding the wood together, except that it was wrenched from its hinges and was thrown down the tunnel. He stepped over it to the room beyond.

  The room looked plain with two rows of pews lined up beside the exiting door. The door was open so the wisps had left through it. The inside of the door was decorated with paintings of vibrant green vines so he stepped into the room to check on the wall.

  A vibrant tapestry of a woman covered the wall, her hair, veil, finger nails, and sclera made out of vines. The face and hands took up almost all the area of the wall. Both her hands were on either side of the door he'd left, as if she was holding the doorway in place. It was both immensely detailed and unnerving. It was as if the woman had captured you in a glass sided box and was considering you, wondering what you would be best used for.

  This looked like a place of worship for a god that Taramo knew absolutely nothing about. Fifty thousand years would have been enough time that anything he knew in that way would be absolutely different, though since some of the 'faiths' were crafted by archmages that fully believed themselves to be divine it was possible they'd maintain order. If they'd figured out immortality.

  A layer of dust had built up on the pews so hopefully he would not be found immediately, though since the wisps had left a lot of turbulence nearer the door had cast the dust into the air.

  Stepping through the door there was a small walkway leading into a sewer. Which was strange since there was no smell of a sewer and a weave of mana set to cover the door. It didn't have the appearance of anything security related and didn't have enough energy to be lethal, though Taramo was still cautious when he went through. The smell of the sewer was warded away from the room and there was also an illusion of a perfectly normal wall. It was useless to keep someone like him out since the mana was entirely unmasked, but that was traded for near perfect verisimilitude.

  Taramo put his hand through the illusion before returning into the room. He would have to figure out the wisp's motives before he went any further so he grabbed his wand from Ariwyn's grip.

  The wand felt different in his grip than before, a bit colder and with a weight in it that moved occasionally. He pointed the wand and stated a command.

  "Wisp, exit the wand for now." The tip of the wand seemed to expand as the blackness of the wisp pulled itself out, dropping itself into a puddle on the floor. The single eye bobbed to the top and swiveled about, looking around until it found Taramo then the eye sank into the body again. The body collected itself together and awaited his command.

  It looked as close as an unidentifiable pile of slime could to a scolded puppy. Taramo spun a small weave to allow Ariwyn to vocalize instead of projecting into his mind.

  "What is this and why does it look so sad?"

  "Your security system had used wisps to patrol for outside threats. Some time ago people made agreements with them to do work for them in return for mana for the vault, though they never saw it. By doing that their Tenets were weakened since they became sentient."

  "And you let them?" He looked from Ariwyn to the wisp and the eye darted to look in a different direction before sinking into the body again.

  "Yes. They didn't cause direct threat to the vault and also helped bring mana that was needed to build the reservoir to bring you back."

  "And why did it attack me?" Taramo reached for the wisp with a finger. It jerked away instinctively, but eventually let him rub it's surface. the wisp pressed against his finger and buzzed against his skin.

  "Ever since the vault was sealed off by that grate the wisps had become restless. They had become used to travelling and getting more mana which was made worse since there was so little to go around. Most I put to sleep so there would be enough mana."

  "You weren't able to get someone to remove the grate?"

  "I tried," the hand gestured at the wall art, "Didn't turn out well. A priest would pass some through manually, but they were expecting me to deal with the 'wraiths' as they called them."

  "I can see why they were considered dangerous, but this one seems fine." The wisp sent a small tendril to rasp across his fingers. It was a bit wet and his fingers felt both cleaner of dust and dirtier with saliva.

  "This one was curious about your mana signature, which was identical to the one he was supposed to protect. It needed to be chastised for the behavior." Ariwyn flipped onto the floor and patted the wisp, "It will not hurt you, if that's what you're wondering. Unless it's starving. Natural sentience has its downsides."

  Taramo looked down at the wisp. the eye was looking hopefully at him.

  "Spot." He named it.

  It bunched up and nearly jumped up to lick at his face, but Ariwyn glared the wisp down.

  Spot liked belly rubs.