Felix felt like he was beginning to understand Travis as a person. Someone who was focused solely on the betterment of his craft, throwing all caution to the wind in order to increase his skill. While Felix had hoped Travis would eventually find more reason to stay and help the team, Felix could not blame Travis. In many ways, Travis reminded Felix of himself when he was younger; starving for knowledge, and jumping at the chance to prove himself. 

	Felix grinned, "Well, in the paraphrased words of Saint Marher, 'time and tide wait for no man!'" Felix said indicating that he was ready to start their research at that very moment.

[h2][center]About 3 Months Later: August 15th 2016[/center][/h2]

	Felix stretched his arms out above his head as he yawned, his yawn echoing off of the white walls of the underground laboratory. What was it at this point? It had to be around 50 hours since Felix last got any decent amount of sleep. They spent months attempting to figure out a process to restore Felix permanently, to no avail. However, in the process, they did inadvertently find a way to reestablish the ley-lines of the paragons within the first month of their research. While the spell they came up with could fix the dud paragons they had in their possession, it did absolutely nothing to help Felix with his personal predicament. However, what was keeping Travis and Felix up so late recently is that they had been testing various runic formulae attempting to condense the large runic circle that surrounded the manor that kept Felix in stasis. The idea was actually Travis’. A few days ago the duo were at their wits’ end when suddenly in a split moment, as if lightning struck, Travis suggested they use a mobile version of something like what Felix had set up around the manor.

	 Many hurdles stood in their way, though. The first being that the rune Felix used was hardly space efficient, it took up about twenty percent of the radius of effect the circle had, which was about 200 square feet. The second being that the rune itself ran off of the latent mana energy that flowed from the gigantic geographical ley-line. The reason Felix had chosen the location he did for constructing his manor was solely because of the natural flow of mana that he could tap into for the rune. So not only was the current rune not space efficient, but it also was not mana efficient either. Fortunately for Felix, one of Travis’ specialties was condensing runic formulae and making spells more efficient. Even with Travis’ help, though, their project was a daunting one. 

	The duo set out at first by making a rough conceptual sketch. They outlined how the system would theoretically work. They knew that in order for it to be mobile, it would need an energy source, they also knew that in order to prevent a feedback loop, they could not use Felix as a source of this energy, directly or indirectly through a mana crystal. Which left them first with the task of creating a rechargeable mana crystal that naturally fed off of the latent ley line energy at their headquarters. This was truly the easiest part of the project, inscribing a runic program upon a mana-crystal was a fairly common magical practice. What they did not expect, however, was to be roadblocked by so many problems in the actual runic formula of the spell itself. Felix leaned back in his office chair, as he used his mana to turn the air in front of him into a chalk board. He swished his index finger around, jotting down a specific line in the formula that they had come at a halt on. 

	“The greek, “στάση” for stasis is probably the most efficient foundational incantation, but the linking stasis to the directive of my mana-well is not so easy. I used many various redundancies in the incantation around the grounds of the house. Even if it wasn’t the most efficient method, it is the most surefire method to ensure the rune will accomplish the desired effect. Also, redundancies strengthen a spell, making it more powerful than normal. The problem, is that we don’t always have room for redundancies. So, efficiency-wise we have to be extremely careful with our wording. Our runes must be extremely precise.” Felix thought out loud as he drew out a few rough ideas. Eventually he grew frustrated and waved his arm at the floating mana, dissipating it into a blue smoke-like vapor that faded away. “Please tell me you are having better luck than me,” Felix pleaded. 

	Before Travis could answer, a loud whirring sound accompanied by a deep blue flash of light interrupted them. The new wooden door in the back of the lab opened, as Raiya stepped out of the steaming room. After Travis and Felix restored the paragon of Fantasia to normal, they both figured out how to prevent the paragon from pulling an entire area into its illusory world. By constructing a different room near the lab and inscribing that room with a set of domain-border runes, the paragon treated the room as a full bounded space. Only those who entered the room would be pulled into the paragon constructed dimensional-field. They also figured out through trial testing, that the paragon of Fantasia could be used to construct any world that the user desired. Of course, everything inside the world was bound to the paragon itself, which meant that it was impossible to leave the paragon with anything that was constructed inside the world. This made the paragon of fantasia an excellent place to train and hone magical skills, a mage could spend days, even weeks inside the world. The only dangerous side effect being that any undigested food and water would collapse into nothing with the rest of the world.  Raiya had been gone for three days this time, and she looked it. Raiya’s clothes were tattered, her hair was disheveled, and she looked fairly dirty (which was impressive considering all Fantasia-constructed dirt disappeared upon world collapse, which meant all of the grime was organic in nature.) 

	Raiya closed the door to the Fantasia room and she dropped the bright blue paragon stone into the new and improved paragon suppression box. It was the same wooden box Felix had used before, but with a new runic formula that did not permanently sever the ley-lines of the paragons but temporarily suppressed them within a bounded field. The small chest was sitting at the edge of the worktable Travis and Felix were sitting at, and after Raiya dropped the paragon into one of the slots of the wooden chest, she closed it. [color=ec008c]“Damn, you eggheads are still going at it, huh? You two look worse than me, and I was almost swallowed by a taiga drake.”[/color] Raiya joked. [color=ec008c]“But seriously, how long have you two been up? I’ve seen Yakuza torture victims who looked better off than you do. And they had their skin flayed off.” [/color]Raiya had been becoming a little less hostile and a little more talkative as of late. Felix was not sure if he should take her friendlier disposition as a bad thing or a good thing, but ultimately he decided that it was better for the team if she got along with everyone. Felix let out a long sigh, “five… teen… fifty or so hours. I’m not even really sure. It’s a paradox, I know I need sleep to think about this straight, but I can’t sleep until we figure this out.” Felix reached out and grabbed the mug that was laying on the table in front of him. He took a sip of the now cold coffee, and then let out another long sigh. [color=ec008c]“Well, I’m going to go take a bath and maybe get drunk, so if you need me, I’ll be upstairs.”[/color] Raiya denoted before heading up the staircase. 

	“Well, Travis, anything of interest?” Felix asked again

[hr]

	Once Raiya closed the door to her room, she undressed and drew a bath, pouring half a bottle of green tea-mana infused soap into the water before sinking down into the hot water. A bath was the one exception to Raiya's hatred towards bodies of water. Raiya pulled a bottle of sake from her mana inventory and a tumbler glass. Raiya poured herself a drink, placing the rest of the bottle on a nearby bathroom table next to a book of daily affirmations that had been there before she occupied the room. As Raiya began to relax and sip her drink, she closed her eyes. But before Raiya could slip into unconsciousness the pinging of her manadial could be heard from the other room. Raiya sighed and stood out of the water, the splashing sound of disrupted bathwater accompanying her. She rushed over to the dial grabbing it, before rushing back to the water to avoid too much discomfort from the comparatively cold air verses the warmth of the bath water. She slinked back into the warm water, that now felt even hotter because of her body jumping from hot to cold to hot again. The manadial continued to ping until, frustrated, Raiya slapped the blue managem. Immediately, a mana-constructed hologram appeared of Tsukihi's face. The brunette whose traditionally half shaven hairstyle, now had a even pixie cut. 


	[color=00a99d]"Oh, ma'am, Ah did not know you were takin' a bath. Ah can call back iffin it's a bad time."[/color] Tsukihi said in her traditional southern accent. [color=ec008c]"No need, what is it, Tsukihi? Is it about what I asked for earlier?"[/color] Raiya asked. [color=00a99d]"N-no, ma'am. Although, ah did manage to fill your order. one-hundred and fifty of your special .45 ACP tungsten rounds."[/color] Tsukihi replied. [color=ec008c]"Good. Then I'll be there in the morning to pick them up."[/color] Raiya stated, and then motioned towards to end the call. [color=00a99d]"Wait! Ma'am."[/color] Tsukihi exclaimed, which stopped Raiya from ending the conference, [color=00a99d]"Ah said that's not why ah called."[/color] Raiya sighed before tipping back the rest of the sake in her glass into her mouth. [color=ec008c]"Then what could possibly be so important?"[/color] Raiya asked facetiously. [color=00a99d]"Well, ma'am. ah tried contacting you the past few days but I couldn't get through,"[/color]

	 Raiya sighed knowing that her radio silence was due to the interference from the paragon. She couldn't tell Tsukihi that she was in possession of one of the most powerful magical objects in existence for obvious reasons. So she just let Tsukihi continue, [color=00a99d]"Anyway, a few days ago we got some reports of some of our dealers down at the pier being killed off. We sent a team to investigate. But we are still waiting on our guy in the morgue and the police department to debrief us."[/color] Raiya let out a large exasperated and exaggerated sigh, [color=ec008c]"Jeez. I'm sure it's nothing. Alright? I'll be there in the morning to pick up my rounds. Don't make me wait around when I get there either."[/color] Raiya said before motioning to end the call, [color=00a99d]"But, ma'-"[/color] Before Tsukihi could finish her thought, Raiya ended the call. Raiya poured another tumbler of sake and began to relax once more.