XRenia entered her bedroom, walk straight over to her large closet and rifled through her clothes looking for suitable travel wear. Her clothes were all neatly hung on a rotating conveyor belt in some type of perfect order she had never quite figured out. As she used magic to turn the conveyor belt on she found herself supremely happy that she had never had to put them away herself. She watched set after set of clothing rolled by until she finally found a white sleeveless silk oriental shirt and a pair of blue denim pants that matched the relative style of the common people in her kingdom.

She laid them out on her bed and used her magic to make them look worn and used then spent the better part of a half an hour weaving protective spells into them making them as defensive as any set of armor.

After slipping into them and throwing away her old clothes she went to the mirror. She stared at herself in the mirror for bit then said, "I guess I probably should try to disguise myself some."

XRenia let her long chest length hair down and shook it out. For a moment she thought about cutting some of it off but realized that was too cliché. So instead she used her magic to change her black hair into bright red then to complete the effect she changed her brown eyes into ivy green.

She took another look into the mirror. She was definitely different now but she still look like herself. Well maybe it was time to borrow one more of her grandfather's magic items. She thought.

She left to room and snuck back down to the war room. Very carefully she glanced around the corner then quickly pulled back.

Good her grandmother was no longer there. She peeped her head back out and used her magic to transfer the item she was after from the vault to her dimensional inventory then quickly teleported back to her bedroom.

She waited breathlessly against the door for her grandfather or one of her family to appear but no one did. Which meant no one had seen her. She smiled to herself. Having seemingly omnipotent guardians like her family made it really hard to sneak around but she had succeeded. For now that is, eventually someone would realize her theft but hopefully she would be in Thaxium by the time they did.

She went to the mirror again and pulled out the priceless item she had borrowed. It was a paper thin mask that allowed one to change their appearance and magic signature. She put it on her face and it glowed slightly as it absorbed into her skin.

"Okay so now to decide what to change." She stared into the mirror. XRenia liked the way she looked the only part of herself that slightly annoyed her was the smaller nose bridge she had inherited from her grandmother. "I guess I can fix that," she said to herself and channeled energy into the magical artifact hiding underneath her skin. Her nose bridge rose and became slightly more prominent.

She turned her head side to side. Perfect. She was now the absolute definition of beauty. At least in her own eyes. But that wasn't the goal she was trying to disguise herself which meant she needed to change something else, even though she really didn't want. "Hey Verin. What should I change?"

He didn't answer.

"Oh come on this is your one chance to make me into your perfect beauty."

He still didn't answer.

"Come on I need some help here."

She felt him sigh. "Okay. Okay I'll help. Maybe make your round chin a little bit more pointed and your cheekbones a little higher."

"Ah so you like heart-shaped faced woman."

He didn't answer but she could vaguely feel him think something about knowing he shouldn't have answered.

She smiled remembering the time her father had exclaimed in frustration, "How come woman always think of loaded questions, force you to answer them and then are always upset by your answer. Even though they knew the question had no good answer to begin with."

XRenia made the changes Verin had suggested and a few various tweaks of her own to complete the effect. When she was done she looked at herself in the mirror once again. And to her surprise she didn't recognize herself at all.

"Well what do you think?" she asked Verin.

"I can't see you," he answered.

"Then scry me."

A few seconds later she felt someone looking at her and turned in that direction.

"Well?"

"You. . You look stunning."

She frowned. "Are you saying you didn't like the way I look before?"

"No. No. You were beautiful before as well."

She glared in the direction of his scrying. "Fine I don't care what you think anyway!" She exclaimed crossing her arms.

"I'm serious you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen."

"Whatever," She declared angrily as she sent her magic in the direction of the scrying smashing it.

XRenia felt Verin pout as he said, "now I really know what your father meant about loaded questions."

She purposely walked away from the mirror. Now all she needed to do was to get to Thaxium. Which was actually going to be kind of hard. Normally she just fly there but that probably wouldn't be the wisest course of action all things considered. And because she hadn't ever been there before teleporting there could have fatal results. If it was anywhere else in the world she just scry it then teleport but thanks to the broken lay lines scrying Thaxium was impossible.

Meaning her only answer was to take a ship out to sea far enough she wouldn't be trespassing on any nation's land then fly there.

"Well if that's the way I have to do it then that's the way I have to do it." XRenia opened a rift to one of her kingdoms Eastern ports and walked through.

XRenia stepped out into one of the back alleys. It had freshly rained in this part of the world and Xrenia could see the auto clean spells driving what remained of the rain water into the gutters. Over head a Vehicle beeped its horn loudly as it barrel towards her. She skipped to the sidewalk just as it touched down.

The driver looked out his window and shouted at her, "Crazy mage think before you teleport I nearly crushed you!"

She fled the alley as the men maneuvered his vehicle into one of the warehouse on the left of the street. Seeing lesser people rely on technology was still always slightly odd to her. Especially when everything in the Palace and most of the capital ran completely on magic.

XRenia made sure she was out of the way of any other vehicles that might just happen to want to land on her and quickly looked around to get her bearings. It had been almost two years since she had last been here and to be honest it probably wasn't the smartest thing for her to have teleported here like that especially not at ground level. But there is no use dwelling on her mistake, she thought as she figured out which way the docs were and headed in that direction.

The wind blew softly and the smell of fish plowed into her like a visceral hammer. She put her hand to her nose. "Eww I forgot this was a fishing port."

As she made her way towards the pier she was greeted with dozens of shops selling magically frozen chunks of fish, along with amazing assortment of fruits, vegetables and other produce. To her surprise well-dressed men perused the goods. She watched them in fascination as they shifted through the foodstuff with expert eyes. "Who.." She mumbled to herself.

"Chefs. You must be in Maghai some of the most famous chefs in all the world go there to shop," Verin told her.

"Ah."

She felt a wave of bewilderment flood over Verin. "How in the world did you not know that? I've spent most of my life in the wilderness and I know that. You are their Princess!"

XRenia shrugged and decided not to answer Verin's question. She scanned the horizon until her eyes locked on a giant cruise liner. That would do nicely, she thought and headed towards it.

"You're forgetting something," Verin's voice chimed in her head.

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"You have no money."

She stopped in her tracks. Oh great just great he was right. Now how was she going to pay boat fair?

"You could go underwater instead of use a boat."

She shook her head even though Verin couldn't see her. "No the residual energy in water makes it hard to use magic while underwater. Not only that if I was discovered swimming through another nation's borders it could only be perceived as subterfuge. Which is far worse than my normal antics."

"Well then it looks like you're going to have to try and make some money."

"And just how do I do that. It's not like I can fabricate gold pieces with magic you know."

"Work."

Verin said inside her mind as if she had never done a day's worth of work in her life.

"Have you?"

"Have I what?" she asked.

"Have you ever done a day's worth of work?"

She paled. "Well that depends on what you mean by work."

"Ha, good luck."

XRenia felt the little bit of his presence that he let her feel retreat from her mind. "Oh, so now I'm not only selfish and spoil rotten, I'm lazy as well?" She shouted at him. Of course there was no reply. The people around her however stopped and stared at her.

Her cheeks flooded red with embarrassment and all she could think was that she was glad she didn't look anything like yourself so there was no way any of them would recognize her. She quickly retreated towards the wharf.

She walked away out on to one of the long piers. Just how was she going to find a job? She didn't want to admit it but she had no clue on how this type of thing was supposed to work. She knew you render services and in exchange they gave you money. But that was about the extent of her knowledge. What type of services could she offer and who could she offers them to?

XRenia had reached the end of the pier and was about to turn back when she heard someone shout. "You have to help them my husband and boys are down there!"

She turned in their direction to see two men dressed in white and red uniforms trying to pacify a woman XRenia guessed was in her mid-thirties. "Ma'am, we are doing our best but the rig we brought in blew an engine."

"Then get another one. He says the glasses cracking and they don't think they have much time left!" The woman shouted again frantically waving her virtual communication device.

The man that spoke before looked away in shame. "That's the only rig we have that can reach that deep."

"Can't you send in a mage. Jake and the boys are pretty good at magic with a little help they could teleport out."

The ocean guard shook his head. "There's not a mage alive besides one of the royal family that could dive that deep."

The woman dropped to her knees. "Can't you do something?"

The man didn't answer. His subordinate looked down at her. "Our engineers are trying to jerryrigged the crane to hand crank system but it's going to take them a minimum of another hour."

"They don't have an hour!" She cried. "The only have a few minutes left."

"Help them," Verin said in her mind.

She jumped from the urgency in his voice. "How? I don't even know what is going on or where they are at."

"Hijack the frequencies from her communication."

"That's illegal!"

"That hasn't stop you before."

"Hey that was only once. And just how many of my memories did you violate?"

"Do it now!"

XRenia sent her magic into the device the woman was now clutching close to her chest and crying over. At once she heard a man's voice saying, "The glass shattered but me and the boys are holding back the water with a shield the pressures too much for us to handle though and there's no way we can keep this up for long. Honey if we don't get out of this ali. ." XRenia shut off her perception of the audio and focused on the origin of the signal.

"There only a few miles from where you are. Do you think you can get them in time?" Verin asked.

XRenia jumped into the sky. "I don't know they are pretty deep" the air around her exploded into flames and as she channeled a shield around herself she felt bad for the few seagulls that were too close to her.

In seconds she could see the giant crane like rig the ocean guard had mentioned. She cut her flight short and dive straight into the water.

Through her shield she could see where the continental shelf had cracked and it gave way to a black gaping hole of an abyss. XRenia tried to will herself forward with her magic but it felt like she was trying to push herself through mud.

"What's wrong why aren't you moving faster!" Verin shouted at her.

"Like I said water is full of living magic. Give me a second I have to actually craft some spells to move," she said, shifting through her memory of memorized spells.

"Hurry up. They are going to be crushed by the water pressure any second."

XRenia rolled her eyes as she remembered the spell she was looking for and started to craft two of the spell at the same time, one with each hand. "It's not like I dive into the ocean every day of my life you know."

She cast the spells and something like two turbines roared to life at the base of her shield propelling her through the water. She poured more energy into the turbine spells and raced towards the underwater fissure.

As she neared its lip she could see the remains of an underwater research crane. Something had smashed into it clipping the cable. From the looks of the dents and scrapes it was probably a joy riding submariner not watching where he was going.

She dove into the black chasm. As she raced deeper the light faded and she was forced in the crafting a light spell. The lifeless void that reached ever deeper seemed to her like the path to hell itself. Why anyone would want to research something like this was beyond her.

"I hijacked your hack and I told them that someone's coming and that they had to hold on. But you have to go faster."

"Oh yes dive faster into the endless abyss. This whole thing is nuts!" She complained but focused more of her energy into the turbine spells.

Seconds later her shield cracked and her heart skipped a beat.

"Don't stop. I'll reinforce your shield."

"You can't do that you're not here!" She shouted. But to her amazement the crack healed itself and her glowing capsule became noticeably thicker. "How'd you do that?"

XRenia felt Verin shrug. "You should be getting close now."

He was right she could see a light in the distance. She sped her way towards it and soon she could make out the domed pie shaped research station slowly falling deeper into the abyss. "For Pete sake how deep does this endless nightmare go?"

"You need to stop it from falling first."

She was only a few hundred feet from it now. "And how am I supposed to do that? The things massive."

"One of the ocean guards says to use your magic to form an ice bridge for it to land on."

"That might work." She shot past the falling research station and focused her magic on the water twenty feet below herself. She experimentally tugged on the heat inside the water pulling it towards her. As the heat rose to meet her the already cold water she had tugged on flash froze. "Okay this will work," she told Verin then violently ripped the heat out of all the water beneath her.

The heat immediately boiled the water above her as the water below her froze into one gigantic solid mass that clung to the side of the chasm.

The heated water rose to meet the research station like a cascading wave, slowing it to a crawl and it gently crashed against the solid ice.

XRenia pushed energy into the turbine spells and swim up alongside the research stations main viewport. It had shattered but a shield around it was keeping the water out. Inside an older man and two boys in their teens were on their knees with their hands firmly pressed against the shield. Their eyes were clamped shut, their teeth clenched and sweat poured off them in droves. Any second they would collapse and then the shield would fall leaving them to be crushed alive by the insane water pressure.

Immediately she reached inside the research station and try to force open a rift but she couldn't.

"Why an't it opening!" Verin cried.

She pushed against it with all his might to no avail. "Because the water is interfering. It's like me trying to force open a rift into King Brokon's own palace. Even for someone like me it's impossible without help."

"Then I'll help."

"How?"

She felt a rift right next to her inside her shield try to open up.

"Help me come to you!"

"What? You can't fit in here with me!"

"I can and I will. Help Me!"

She closed her eyes and pushed against a rift with all her might. It expanded and Verin crawled his way through pushing her backside firmly against the outside of her shield as he squeezed himself inside with her.

Once he was fully through he immediately craned his neck as his rift closed and focused on trying to open another rift inside the research station.

Every part of her was pushed up against him and she could fill his breath as he said, "Help me." For what seemed like the umpteenth time to her. She forced the thoughts of his body being so close to her out of her mind and helped him.

The rift opened just as the family's shield gave way. The water raced in to the research station slamming into them and pushing them through the rift to safety.

Both of their muscles relaxed and for a bit both of them just sat there smashed together like a pair sardines inside a personal shield only big enough for one, their faces only two finger widths apart from each other.

As the adrenaline drain away XRenia realized they had saved the boys and man's life. No, Verin had saved them she would've never tried such a thing on her own. She looked up into his blue sinless eyes and her heart started to beat faster.

"Don't sell yourself sort you're the one that saved them I am just the one that helped."

Her mouth tilted closer to his.

"Though it's probably the first selfless act you've ever done in your entire life."

She turned her head away sharply.

Verin laughed. "I think we should open another rift and get out of here."

Suddenly she felt very tired. "As much as I want to, I don't think I have another one of those in me." She pouted.

He looked down into her tired eyes and raised his hand to her forehead. "Are you okay?"

She batted his hand away. "Yeah I'm fine. You're just sucking up all the oxygen faster than I can convert it. That and my brain feels like it's about ready to explode from pushing my magic through the water."

Verin nodded and she felt his mind actively using his magic to turn them and feed the magic turbines to propel them back towards the surface.

She closed her eyes and let her face rests on his chest.