Dean watched as approximately eight-hundred members of the vanguard flowed into the ships. From the balcony of the Spire, he had an excellent vantage point to watch the already-boarded kursi ship as it hovered over the massive lake.

Dean cocked his head. The lake must have a name by now...right?

>>Fartuun, do you know the name of the lake?

A moment later, she sent a message back.

>>Wait...

Dean rubbed the bridge of his nose, then sighed, shifting his gaze to look over the coastline beyond the city-seed's borders.

>>Why don't you just name it?

Fartuun suggested. Dean cocked an eyebrow.

>>You're telling me that a lake the size of the Mediterranean still hasn't been named?

Beyond marking how to proceed from one gate to the next, the extant verdora maps contained only the crudest of details. As a result, the vanguard had been making maps and naming landmarks as they went.

Didn't we bring an entire team of people skilled in cartography? Dean mused. This is within their domain. While the planets had been named by COTD sometime back on Earth, and the city-seeds successively named by select members of the vanguard, everything else was the responsibility of the cartographers.

>>I never said it didn't have a name, just that you should name it :3

Dean rolled his eyes. I'm not gonna name it if it already has a name. He felt bad founding and naming so many cities already.

>>What's it called?

>>One of the cartographers encountered an android. He was, apparently, the only one to ask an android about the names of local features. According to the android, the lake's name is Ire.

Dean spoke the lake's name under his breath. "Lake Ire." He nodded slowly. Definitely not the worst name we've seen on this expedition.

The next planet they were visiting, Dragondeep, was supposed to be volcanic, more so than Gray Land. However, while Gray Land's gates lay submerged in Lava, those of Dragondeep rested exposed atop rocky outcrops. According to the encyclopedia, the planet was a mess of islands and cracked continents.

Because of the planet's volatility and conditions unsuitable for cultivating plant life, Bath and Lisa had informed him that they weren't going to bother setting down a city-seed. Instead, they were to continue straight on to the next planet, Fiendstrom.

Based on the descriptions in the encyclopedia, Fiendstrom sounded almost as inhospitable as Dragondeep--as its name suggested, the planet was wracked by ferocious storms, hurricanes, tsunamis, the works. Something about the planet, however, had sparked Bath's interest, and he expressed great excitement during one of their meetings about colonizing it. I wonder if it's something he saw while flying over it, Dean wondered.

Either way, he thought, I'll see what he has planned in less than a day. The suspense, if Dean could call it that, was entirely bearable.

---

"This is, by far, the most hideous planet yet," Dean exclaimed as he ran over the mottled, burnt ground. "Worse even than Lime World." Dean had difficulty quantifying exactly why the planet was so off-putting. While Lime World had been mildly ugly because of its dull terrain and toxic-green cesspools, Dragondeep's terrain stretched and distended like a corpse...one first blazed to a charcoal-crisp finish, then left to bloat in water so that its black finish cracked and made way for pale, pink flesh.

Virigard chirped her assent. "Just walking on all this obsidian is leaving my nails black," she whined.

"Hey," Eyrin's devilbat, Clarissa, shouted. "What's wrong with black?" She pumped her wings furiously to keep pace. "I really don't get why we aren't establishing a city here: this is my kind of place."

While Dean and Virigard didn't have eyes for anything but the rough terrain in front of them, they had no difficulty imagining the incensed look on Clarissa's face.

"Clarissa," Eyrin said, his steady voice barely concealing laughter, "this planet looks as though afflicted by a fungal skin disease."

Dean chuckled. I never realized the verdora prince had a sense of humor. The last time they'd traveled together was when they were entering Vast Desert. Based on that encounter alone, Dean had pegged him as a stereotypical Jane Austen noble with "daddy issues." But on their trek across Dragondeep's surface, Eyrin had taken every moment possible to take jabs at his devilbat companion.

Because Clarissa was incredibly easy to make fun of, Dean and Virigard had quickly joined Eyrin in aggravating the devilbat to pass the time.

"You guys are the worst," Clarissa sniffed. "This is what I get for wanting to see more of the world." She sighed dramatically. "Flying across this planet was my only opportunity to see its goth-inspired surface."

Virigard giggled. "I still haven't seen much of the world," Virigard piped up. "I'm short! Really short!" She jumped up into the air to prove her point, bounding several feet above Dean's head before falling back in stride. She turned around to look at Clarissa. "Can I--" the breath went out of her lungs as she promptly tripped on an elevated slab of red-crusted obsidian and flew forward seven feet.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Watch where you're going," Dean chided, shooting her an expectant look.

In that moment of lapsed concentration, he, too, rammed his foot into a slab of rock. However, instead of him tripping over the rock, he simply kicked it apart. Nevertheless, the motion slowed him down.

"Shit!" he hissed, shaking out his foot.

Eyrin laughed uproariously from the sky, his veil whipping wildly about his face. Clarissa had a smug expression on hers as she watched two of her verbal tormenters suffer mishaps.

As Virigard scrambled to her feet, she exclaimed, "Take me with you!"

Eyrin's laughter stopped. "Hmm?"

Clarissa snorted. "You wanna fly, mouse?"

"Dea--Knight help~" Virigard called out. She began to address the flying duo once more. "I'll give you guys each three rum cokes if you let me fly!"

"Just put on a wingsuit," Clarissa suggested.

Virigard's eyes grew wide and bulbous with unshed tears.

"Guys," Dean intoned, shaking his head. Now they'd done it.

"I can't use a wingsuit!" Virigard lamented. "My arms are too short!"

Eyrin laughed once more. "If you can jump onto Clarissa, be my guest."

Dean snorted at the offer. There's no way that Virigard will be able to jump high enough to hitch a ride, he thought. Seeing the determination in her expression, though, almost changed his mind...until he remembered that she'd had the same expression when she tried--and failed--to use a wingsuit. Now that I think about it, she also had this expression when I told her digging up through the Spire to reach my office was impossible...and look where that led her.

For the rest of the trip, the group of sapients trailing behind would wonder at the white blur that lunged toward the ducking and swooping kursi prince and his devilbat.

---

Several hours later, the contingent arrived at the designated exit gate leading to Fiendstrom. The four approached the gate, while the rest of the ground crew congregated in an area off to the side. Dean recalled the instructions given to him by Juserin and his team of specialists back on Illudis: Before stepping onto Fiendstrom, use a transcriber at the gate threshold to get a reading of planet's weather.

This was the main reason that the group outside the ships went first: they needed to determine the conditions on Fiendstrom to ensure that the ships could enter the gate safely. While nobody doubted that the ships could withstand the void of space, they weren't invulnerable. While Juserin's smaller voyager would likely do well in even the worst of weather, the larger arc ships and their needle-thin designs made Dean uneasy. The last thing we need is for one of our newly-constructed vessels to get ruined in a storm.

Dean pulled the verdoran transcriber from one of the pockets on the inside of his tabard, looked at it, then walked forward over the cracked obsidian and placed it on the ground. As he watched the transcriber sprout stalk-like legs and teeter away, Eyrin addressed him from behind.

"Is that why they sent us out here first?" he asked.

Dean nodded. "Testing the weather is a priority. Taking the rest of the vanguard along who didn't fit into the ships is a secondary benefit." As he spoke, the transcriber-bot tentatively approached the gate, two antennae swiveling wildly in front of it.

"And you call this planet hideous..." Clarissa grumbled in the background as she gave the transcriber-bot a look of abject disgust. "Fuckin' spiders..."

"Couldn't we fit all the vanguard onto the ships?" Eyrin asked. "Fitting two-hundred-or-so more shouldn't be impossible, especially since we acquired the arc on Drift Jag."

Dean shook his head. "We haven't been able to use that one," he explained. "We actually left it behind with a few engineers."

"Really?" Eyrin murmured, eyes alight with interest. "Does that decision have anything to do with evacuating Drift Jag's original city-seed?"

"We had concerns about the ship emitting radioactivity," Dean admitted. "Moreover, it was submerged under a radioactive mountain. While, according to AI Ninety-Seven, the arcs are outfitted with radiation shields, we still haven't confirmed that the ship is safe to board after years of radiation exposure."

Clarissa nodded, her bobbed hair swishing around her face. "That would suck."

Eyrin gave Dean a peculiar, searching look. "Can't your Church and Dragon heal radiation poisoning?"

Dean narrowed his eyes. I know that Bath can...but there must be a limit, otherwise he would have just cleaned the mountain surrounding New Mogadishu instead of planting an entirely new city-seed. "They can heal radiation poisoning, but in the end, I think they'd prefer to keep their subjects...away...from harmful influences."

Eyrin chuckled dryly. "I'm not sure you believe what you're saying."

Dean suddenly felt very aware of the fact that he was alone with an experienced kursi. He'd never considered being alone with kursi a problem until now: so far as he knew, Lisa had never used her ability to influence him. But Eyrin's knowing, calculating gaze reminded Dean of a cat eying a mouse. I need to be less naive, he thought, annoyed at himself.

He grimaced. "Eyrin, I don't want to accuse you of anything...but don't use your abilities to read me, okay? Thanks."

Eyrin stiffened. "Knight," he said. "That's like asking me to turn off the color sensors in my eyes."

Dean crossed his arms. He'd assumed kursi abilities needed to be activated, rather than being active all the time. Is that what it's like for Lisa whenever she talks to me? Dean blushed at the thought. While he didn't like Lisa, there had still been more than a few times while talking to her that he'd...well. Socially awkward guy meets real-life goddess...and is unable to think clearly. Who would have thought? Of course Dean didn't consider Lisa a real goddess, but in looks alone she more than satisfied every requirement.

Dean was glad that his dark skin hid his embarassment...until he remembered that his shell--and current emotional state--were clearly visible. Wow, this is going downhill quickly.

Dean scrutinized the verdora, trying to catch any reaction. "Eyrin, why didn't you go with the other kursi?"

"Because," Clarissa butted in. "Like I said, we wanted to see the planet too inhospitable for a city-seed up close and personal."

Eyrin shot her an amused look. "Something like that."

Just then, Virigard began to giggle.

"Hm?" Dean intoned, spinning around.

"If I've learned one thing about the verdora, it's that they just wanna have fun." She pointed a tiny finger at Eyrin. "Is this more fun than riding on a ship?"

"Yes."

Virigard nodded sagely. "That's your answer."

Suddenly, a beep pulsed through the air, attracting the four pairs of eyes. "Let me see..." Dean murmured, walking over to the gate-bisected transcriber. As originally instructed, he placed his chip reader up against its exposed side. A moment later, a weather status report appeared on the chip reader's holoprojection.

"As we thought, the weather is okay," he said. "No large storms expected."

"Yay!" Virigard cheered, sauntering over to the devilbat. Clarissa regarded Virigard with a cool, composed face, but still gave her knuckles all the same.

Dean nodded. "The signal for the others will go through as soon as we enter the gate." Another transcriber lay between Dusk's Halo and Dragondeep: once it no longer picked up a signal from Dean's chip reader, it would notify Lisa, Bath, and the ship pilots.

Dean ran over to a nearby rock, his body a veritable blur. "Everyone," he called out, gathering their attention. "We're entering the gate. Line up!"

Only minutes later, the Church of the Dragon's first followers set foot on Fiendstrom.