Grey picked up the blueprint and rolled it up. Then he handed it to Elowen with a tired smile on his face.
"Who are you really?" Elowen asked.
"Oh boy, don’t ask such dangerous questions. You see what happened to the last guy that asked that?" Grey hooked a thumb toward Petri.
"You’re going to tie me up too?"
Grey blinked and then grinned. Unfortunately, before he could say what he wanted to, Elowen rolled her eyes.
"You’re lucky you’re talented otherwise I’d kick you in the balls. You’re the only person who’s ever been so blatantly rude to me so consistently. Not even the sisters I don’t like are like this."
"Well I would hope not. That would be quite incestuous."
Amunet groaned. "Give it a rest already."
"Oh? Finally finished drooling over this shiny new mech I made you?"
Amunet simply plucked it up from the table. In an instant, she had completed the Intent step and the mech fused onto her arm. In that moment, it almost looked like she had become part cyborg.
Unlike Grey, she didn’t have a Cyber Space, so she could only carry it around like this.
For Mauve and Brad, this was particularly troublesome because they had the grills Grey had made for them. He had made them more subtle and almost like retainers, but they were still there. So, in order to fuse with this new mech, they would have to make sure they "turned off the tap water", so to speak, to one or the other.
If it was just yesterday, Grey wouldn’t have even dared to give them a second mech like this. Their Frames would have exploded.
Luckily, Call of the Silver Moon had fixed a lot of their foundation issues even after suffering through just a single heartbeat.
"Mech? I don’t know what you’re talking about."
Just as Grey was about to say something that mech vanished into shadows, and then Amunet’s arm was back in sight as though she hadn’t fused with it at all.
"... Usually women wait to get the ring before they start acting so shamelessly."
"Well good thing I’m not waiting on a ring from you, then."
Grey sighed and he looked at Brad. "I’m not cut out for this harem thing. You can have them."
Elowen and Amunet almost instantly started glaring at Brad as though daring him to say something.
He put his hands up in surrender. "I didn’t even say anything. What’s with all this aggro????"
Grey clapped. "Alright, now I need the fastest moving vessel the city or you can procure. It only needs to be able to fit two people. And it has to be faster than a Mythical item. Can you do that?"
Grey already had the Dark Kin Cycle, but from what he could tell, it would take over a week to get to Thi Lan. Probably as much as two. And that was only if they rode underground and only stopped to sleep and eat.
It just wasn’t good enough.
The One Line treasure was more so what he was looking for.
It could cut down the trip to hours, but the main problem was that Frantz had taken days to reach Zone 234. What that probably meant was that those One Line Vessels were difficult to procure, even for a Duke looking to find out why his son was suddenly dead for no reason.
So, Grey wasn’t even hoping for a One Line Vessel, he was just hoping for something that could cut down the travel time to a few days.
To his surprise, though...
"Since you’re going somewhere within the empire, I give you my One Line Vessel. It’s a life saving measure and it’s technically set to return to the palace from anywhere. But it can be tweaked."
"You have one already."
"Well, I have several." Elowen said with a nod.
Grey grinned ear to ear.
"Save it. I’m not trying to hear sexual harassment attempt number 725."
"Now that just hurts."
"Maybe you just need to work on your game a little bit more."
"Just a little bit?" Grey’s grin returned.
"You’ll never win with him," Amunet said. "He’s too shameless."
"I’ve noticed." Elowen nodded.
"Alright, the last thing I need is you two teaming up. I have harem member number four to save. No time for idle chitchat."
Surprisingly, Elowen didn’t say too much and just handed him a familiar bracelet. Except, unlike Frantz’s that only had two hanging ornaments on it, one of which had been cracked. This one had five full and complete ones.
"You’ll need to use your map to set the location. You’ll also need to be outside the city. One Line Vessels use space concepts so they’re heavily restricted in here."
"Got it." Grey nodded, then he gave Elowen a genuine smile. "Thank you, really."
Elowen couldn’t face the earnestness in Grey’s eyes so she just looked away.
Amunet saw this from the side and couldn’t help but blink. She doubted that Grey would give her a look like that anytime soon. Maybe never.
"Let’s go." Grey said to Amunet.
Then he walked to a corner and pressed a foot down. Hard.
It kicked up a tile like it was a skateboard, one end bending and twisting beyond recognition.
"Tell me though, how didn’t you know that was there?" Elowen asked with a genuine frown.
"Trade secrets." Grey said, waving a hand as he disappeared. Amunet followed swiftly after him.
Of course... he knew that was there because it was basically the only thing left after a certain Volthari had completely destroyed the room.
"What am I supposed to do with him?!" Elowen shouted, realizing Petri was still here.
"I dunno, stick a fork in him."
Grey’s laughter echoed for a long while until even that sound was cut out.
...
When Grey popped up, they were still inside the city, but a long ways away from the guild. This would probably be the trickiest part... they’d have to walk out of the gate.
Technically, Grey was still under a quasi house arrest due to The Boundless. He didn’t think the latter would just let him casually leave whenever he wanted even though he did have a legitimate status now.
The Valdri certainly wouldn’t.
So, rather than doing things the normal way and hoping they weren’t discovered...
Grey decided to do things his way.
"Ready for some bullshit?" Grey asked with a grin.
Amunet sighed. She felt that would probably not be the last time in this short little trip she’d have to do that.