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~~((National Senior Citizens Day -- page 7 of 24))~~
"It is not our intention for this gift to feel like a burden in any way," said the President. "Ultimately, that is all that I had hoped to achieve with this meeting here today. If there are any larger questions concerning the nature of the reward, I would happy to answer them."

"Thank you," said David. "As it so happens, I have many more that come to mind."

"As do I," said Hanton.

And Hector, for his part, merely continued listening. And as the meeting drew out, Hector had to wonder if the two men sitting next to him were actually on his side in this particular conversation.

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Just as the Vantalayans had said, these rings were surprisingly easy to use. The Rainlords still took precautions and decided to practice with them anyway, but Raul felt like he'd gotten the hang of it pretty quick.

Once he understood the way the invisibility functioned, the ring just seemed to respond to his intent. If he wanted to become invisible, he became invisible. If he wanted to see his companions who were also invisible, the ring revealed them.

It was unfortunately still unclear whether or not these rings could reveal the locations of all other invisibility users in the vicinity. If so, then these items could very well prove to be supremely valuable tools in the fight against Abolish, both now and in the foreseeable future. But the reapers all seemed to be concerned that this function might be limited.

They felt there was a high probability that these rings would only work on other, similar rings. As in, perhaps they would only be able to penetrate the invisibility of rings that had been "harvested" from the same aberration.

And with that possibility in mind, caution was still the order of the day. At first, this mission had seemed like it might well become trivial with the power of these rings now in their hands, but the Rainlords had suffered too many losses too recently. They were not going to let overconfidence be their downfall here.