The Crimson Calling is sailing on the Gilded Zephyr, having been smuggled from Sutheron and heading to Llanos port. Alexis kneels down next to Ethelred, who is continually studying the documents from the Collegium, holds the red jasper around his neck, and chants something while his other hand forms precise forms and seems to get a little blue.

For the next many hours Alexis sits next to Ethelred, thinking. Occasionally one of the Calling will ask him for something, or about something, and he will respond and then go back to his focused thoughts. For some portion of his reverie he writes or draws in his book.

The next morning at breakfast clears his throat to get the group’s attention while he idly walks a copper coin across his knuckles. “Yesterday I studied the ritual room with the demon under the Copper Hills Fort. As we had suspected it was human magics calling upon demon magics. Nothing about the magics was anything I’ve ever encountered before. Not the sorcery on the sword, not the summoning. But I could clearly make out two intertwined magics: one demonic, and other was of Avv.”