The palace's security registration was efficient rather than ceremonial — the Palace Guard's process for integrating temporary high-clearance guests into the residential ward's defensive grid was clearly well-rehearsed, which said something about how often people needed to stay on-site here for operational rather than social reasons.
Rosanne, Jessica, Mika, and Donna came out of it with silver-grade permits that gave them passage through the Annex's restricted wards and registered their mana signatures in the palace's monitoring systems. The guards processed them with the specific professionalism of people who were genuinely assessing four Tier 2 practitioners as potential assets to the building's security rather than simply checking them in as guests.
He left them settling into the Annex with the breakfast the attendants had delivered and made the walk through the estate's main corridor — still thick with the cedar and mana-silk smell of the previous evening's tribute — toward the royal table.
Valerian was alone at the table by the time Markus arrived, which he suspected was deliberate — the specific privacy of a conversation that didn't need the usual household attendance around it.
"Phase Three," Markus said, settling into the offered seat. "I've been thinking about the right environment for the first live test. An actual dungeon rather than a controlled training scenario. The foundation work holds, but it's only been tested against things we've calibrated to her. She needs to operate against something that doesn't know her limits."
"I had the same thought," Valerian said. He set down his cup. "Which is convenient, because this estate has something most training academies don't."
He transmitted the file with a gesture — a high-clearance manifest, encrypted at the level Markus had expected, carrying the dungeon layouts and creature density data for a series of anchored Rifts beneath the palace's foundation.
"Private Rifts," Valerian said. "The Swiss Guards train in the lower sectors. They're maintained to specific threat levels — it's how we keep the security detail sharp rather than comfortable. The Tier 1 sector is yours to use for Rosalind's excursion."
Markus opened the manifest and ran the layout against the threat parameters he'd been building since the conversation with the team.
"The seventy percent threshold holds," he said.
"The seventy percent threshold holds," Valerian confirmed. "The security office has been briefed. They'll have the stability report and extraction protocol ready before you enter. I've also requested that the Guard's extraction team be on standby at the Rift's entry point — not inside, they'll compromise the exercise, but within response distance if the protocol triggers."
"Rosalind's weight in this decision," Markus said. "She gets to review the layout and the options before we finalise the choice. She should be choosing her first real engagement, not having it assigned to her."
Valerian looked at him for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "Bring her the options. That's correct." He picked up his cup again. "Finish your breakfast before you leave. The Rifts aren't going anywhere."
The holographic display that the Annex terminal produced from the manifest was detailed enough to work with properly — creature spawn patterns, terrain constraints, mana flux levels at the current stability readings, environmental hazard distributions.
He had Rosalind present for the briefing, which had required a brief detour to the garden where she'd been taking her morning walk.
"The Emperor has given us access to twelve Rifts in the palace's private sector," he said, when everyone was assembled. "Three tiers of difficulty, four dungeons in each. Your job is to analyse the options and arrive at a recommendation. We'll compare analysis before I make a final call."
He gestured at the display and let them work.
The lower tier — Levels 1 through 3 — was straightforward to dismiss. The creature density and threat ceiling were calibrated for the Guard's baseline conditioning work, which was genuinely demanding in that context and would not be sufficiently demanding for Rosalind's specific purpose. She needed something that would force her void affinity into active decisions, not passive endurance.
The mid-tier options were more interesting. The Azure Grotto's mana disruption property was specifically relevant to her training — the bioluminescent crystals that periodically interfered with sensory skills would force her to operate without reliable mana-sense feedback, which was exactly the kind of pressure the channel hardening had been building her toward. The Amber Hive's swarm behaviour would test reaction time and area management.
The peak tier: Markus had already been thinking about this section since he opened the manifest the first time.
"The Void-Stained Arena is too on-the-nose for her affinity," Donna said, before he could express this himself. "If the environment is already void-adjacent, it's not testing her control — it's just giving her element a home field advantage."
"The Frost-Bound Spire reduces mana capacity progressively," Mika said. "That's a good stress test but it's linear — she'd know exactly what's happening and could pace against it. Not enough unpredictability."
"The Verdant Maw," Rosanne said.
He looked at her.
"Sentient ecosystem," she said, pointing to the relevant data cluster. "It adapts to the combatants. The predators use primitive camouflage and coordinate in response to what they observe, not just what they're coded to do. The toxic air compounds any mana-inefficiency rather than just damaging HP — every technique that isn't clean costs her twice. And she can't shut it down by simply overwhelming it, because the ecosystem reads the mana signature and adjusts." She looked at the readout. "This is the one that will make her think, not just react."
The rest of the team had been looking at the same data and arrived at the same place. He could see it in how they were sitting.
"Rosalind," he said.
She had been reading the Maw's layout with the specific attention she brought to things she was committed to understanding rather than just accepting. "The terrain forces void control at low ambient mana," she said. "I can't brute-force it. I have to be precise or I lose half the technique's value to the toxic overhead." She looked up. "It's the right choice."
"Then we're agreed," Markus said.
He sent the recommendation to the Emperor's office and the security detail simultaneously — not just notification of the choice, but the full parameters one more time, the extraction protocol, the Guard's standby position. He wanted the Emperor's office confirming they'd received it, not just assuming the morning briefing was sufficient.
The confirmation came back within minutes.
[Verdant Maw Rift access authorised. Stability report attached. Extraction team confirmed at standby position A7. Proceed at your readiness.]
"Check your supplies," he said, to the team. "Full inventory. Nothing we can't replace if we have to, nothing we'll wish we'd brought if we didn't." He looked at Shiela, whose hemographic range was the early warning system the whole plan's safety margin depended on. "How far out can you read signatures clearly in a confined ecosystem?"
"Forty metres," she said. "Maybe forty-five if the mana interference is within the range the manifest lists. I'll know if it's higher when we're in."
"Call it out immediately when you're reading anything approaching the perimeter threshold," he said. "That's your job for the whole descent — not engagement, constant signature monitoring."
She nodded. He trusted she understood what he meant: she was the net, and the net needed to be held steady the whole time.
"Rosalind," he said. "One more time: seventy percent health floor. You feel the monitoring spike, you hear from me or Rosanne, you don't argue, you pull back. That's the agreement."
"I know," she said. "I agreed to it."
"I know you know," he said. "I say it again because the Maw is going to be doing its best to make you forget. That's the whole point."
She held his gaze, the specific steadiness of someone who had spent seven months learning exactly what she was capable of and was not, at this moment, performing calm.
"I'm ready," she said.
The chime from the security office arrived.
"Then let's go," he said.