Due to being busy fantasizing about Sophia’s lookalike taking Sylver up on his offer, he failed to notice the odd emotion emanating out of Ria’s soul. The circle he had prepared for her was empty, there was only a large pile of shattered wood fragments.

As Sylver inspected his surroundings, he realized that the dark creature standing off in the corner was not one of his shades. It had the form of a woman in a skintight suit, with streaks of gold symmetrically spread out through her body.

Sylver felt as if someone punched him in the stomach, as he realized what he was looking at, as Ria turned around and faced him. 

Her face was made out of solid gold, almost as if it was a mask she was wearing, but with the added body below her, it somehow appeared more lifelike than it had ever been. Sylver adjusted the edges of his robe as he looked at her and waited for her to talk.

“What were you going to do with her?” Ria asked.

Even with it bouncing around the cave walls and ceiling, Sylver could tell the sound was coming from Ria’s chest and back, and not her mouth.

Her body was identical to how Chrys’ was before Lily had healed the implants out of her. But now that Sylver was looking at her, the texture of her body was too smooth, the worms had been a lot grainier.

“I planned to ask for your permission to inspect the curse she had developed. If you allowed me, I would have reverse engineered it, and probably slightly improved some of my similar curses,” Sylver explained, while Ria’s face just stared at him.

Even if the area from which she was “seeing” was somewhere in her shoulders. Sylver could feel it due to her soul.

“And if I said no, you would have destroyed her?” Ria asked, and did her best to “walk” but the movement of her feet didn’t match the distance she moved with each step.

Sylver tried to figure out how Ria found the worms. 

But when Spring informed him that the box where he kept the worms for temporary storage had a circular hole in it and a shattered wooden staff on the floor, Sylver made an educated guess.

“As opposed to desecrating the corpse of someone you considered a friend? I’m not entirely certain what you wish for me to say in this situation. Did you think I was planning to do this behind your back? That I valued our friendship so little?” Sylver asked, and felt the anger Ria had been holding on to since he arrived disappear almost instantly.

Ria was quiet for a while, but Sylver could hear some kind of odd wurring noise coming from her torso.

“I don’t want you to study her or cut her up. She’s mine,” Ria said, with just a hint of a child clutching their favorite doll. 

Sylver nodded.

“I can hide her away in a bone for you. Or I can make you a chest that only you’ll be able to access. Or we can-”

Sylver was interrupted as Ria raised her left hand, and a small ball of bright red flames appeared in her palm. She waved her hand forward, and the flame flew 2 meters, before it stopped floating, and fell to the floor like a poorly designed paper airplane.

That wasn’t Sylver’s spell, Ria had just summoned fire.

“It’s encrypted, but she seems to know how to use magic. The technology used in the ribs is an extremely advanced version of her, but there is just enough overlap for them to be compatible,” Ria explained, as she moved her left hand towards one of the tables near her and swung it.

The contents on the table shattered as they fell on the floor, and the metallic table clanged as it collided with the ceiling, and then fell back down to the floor. Ria had made it move around without touching it.

“I will need to figure out her oh es first, but after I do that, I should be able to cast the spells she knew when she was alive. Just like the ribs, she’s a combination of carbon-based graphene nano-bots, except I can interact with her on a much higher level than I can with the ribs,” Ria explained, and Sylver could do little but nod along.

Ria looked down at her body as if to inspect it before she looked up at Sylver again.

“Did Lola finish making the staff?” Ria asked.

Sylver nodded as his robe shifted the folded-up piece of metal into his hands. Sylver spun the middle bit, and when the two detached pieces were close enough, activated the mechanism inside and caused them to snap together into one solid piece.

Ria gestured towards herself, and Sylver gently made the staff float over to her.

Sylver later realized that the reason the image disturbed him, was because she was using Chrys’ image. Ria’s stomach caved in as she touched the staff, and a shiny black liquid engulfed the staff and proceeded to grow thicker and thicker on the metal rod, as Ria’s body became smaller.

What remained was a long blob of dark liquid, with streaks of melted gold passing through it. And then, as if a balloon deflated, the liquid shrunk and only a dark staff with tiny gold lines passing through it remained. One end had 3 ribs embedded into it, that from a certain angle made it look like a trident.

The lines of gold were very thin and looked like the underside of those things inside computers that Grant tried to teach Sylver about. No curves, only straight lines, with some slight bends.

The staff floated ominously a half meter off the floor and then began to spin in a circle. It spun, and spun, and spun, and eventually was fast enough that it became a blackish blur.

The staff stopped spinning as if someone had grabbed it, and then broke into 3 pieces. Unlike with Sylver though, the piece with the rib trident remained upright, while the other 2 appeared to hang from it.

“Seems like you’ve got telekinesis down,” Sylver complimented, and the staff snapped back into 1 solid piece, and did a slight bow.

“When it’s this dense, it’s basically carbon fiber. And even if it gets damaged, all of these are self-replicating, I can make more with just a bit of coal. Or I could force an organic substance to bind with the oxygen in the air, and then simply…” Ria’s voice became quieter and quieter until Sylver could no longer hear her.

He gestured towards the dented table and made it float over to the corner that had unofficially become the area where trash was stored, and he did the same for the various beakers Ria had smashed in her demonstration.

By the time Sylver was done, Ria was floating a half step away from him, and she formed her black and gold face in the space between the ribs, like a ring holding a precious jewel.

“How did it go with Bruno’s chimeras?” Ria asked.

It wasn’t her tone or anything Sylver could put his finger on, but he got the feeling the conversation regarding SAM was over, and Sylver wasn’t supposed to ask her anything on that front. He decided that Ria is entitled to her secrets if that will help her deal with whatever internal turmoil was going on here.

“Really good. I’ve got 5 new shades, technically 4 since Morana doesn’t count, and technically 10 since the snake and the beetles sort of count as different shades,” Sylver explained, as Ria’s face turned into confusion.

He summoned his newly acquired shades and explained to Ria their abilities.

“You didn’t name the snake?” Ria asked. 

“I couldn’t think of a good name,” Sylver said.

Sylver then got to see a very strange sight, as Ria’s hand slowly appeared on the staff, and her arm grew out of it, followed by her torso, and within a couple of seconds, her body was whole again, and standing on the ground, with the staff in her hand.

Ria was dead silent for a solid minute before she shrugged her shoulders and started being sucked up into the staff again. Apparently, she couldn’t think of a good name either.

Sylver watched her do this over and over again for a while. Each conversion took her less and less time, and by the time Sylver grew bored, Ria was able to form herself a body in under 6 seconds.

He left her to practice and started preparing, gathering, packing, and storing away the various ingredients and components he wanted to take with him. Sylver planned to enjoy his family gathering, which the rabbits had turned into a party and banquet, go to bed, and then wake up fresh and rested, and then go and find and save Edmund.