The rest of the Chaos Fount was just as easy to subjugate, Yuriko thought. Her sunblades were more than capable of exploring everything since the whole space was less than half a longstride wide. Not that she killed everything by herself.

Well, she would have, except Gwendith stopped her.

“Let us have the chance to stretch,” her lover murmured to Yuriko’s ear. “We’ve been travelling for long weeks, and this is a nice enough place to relax. There’s ambient Chaos, even if it’s only a little bit.”

“Alright,” Yuriko agreed. It was hardly a challenge after the novelty wore off. The place was filled with tunnels and caverns, and in each cavern was a group of the grey-skins. None of the monsters were stronger than a Wanderer Wyldling, and those things would have been easy even while she and the others had been Novices.

In fact, there was so little danger involved that Yuriko allowed the others to explore on their own. She kept track of them with a miniaturised sunblade: and innovation she learned over the past weeks. The Radiant Flying Swords weren’t always obvious, and sneak attacks were part of the Ennoia. Shrinking the blade simply involved compressing it while simultaneously thinning its presence on this layer of reality, something she would not have even known about without Damien’s God-Monarch-level demonstration. She could only access one sublayer, however, that of the dreamscape.

So in essence, she shunted the excess mass and brightness of the sunblade over into the dream until she needed to use its full power. Mini-blades were about a thousandth of a normal-sized one’s power. Which honestly, was more than enough to kill any Wyldling.

So while she lounged at the entrance chamber, she observed the others’ battles. Cillian Coinoch was not built to fight alone, so he tagged along behind Heron. The lieutenant seemed more than a little impressed with the other’s physical prowess and couldn’t help but ask, almost pestering, him about his skills.

“You’re using an internal Arcana Weaving, aren’t you? Just like most of the Sha’ledras,” Cillian babbled. “Your training regimen must be incredible since your physique doesn’t have big, bulging muscles.”

“It’s alright,” Heron said, with not a little bit of amusement at the older man’s chatter. “This is how my power expressed itself, so there’s little I can do.”

“But how exactly do you use Wind elemental energy to make you stronger?” Cillian asked. “Faster, yes. Quick reactions and speed are the hallmarks of Internal Weavers of the Wind. Fire elemental users have explosiveness, Earth, toughness and strength, while Water have flexibility and, well, resilience.”

“I don’t use Wind to empower my body,” Heron said. “Simply training.”

“Huh, I find that hard to believe,” Cillian said softly, then responded with a louder voice. “Secrets, huh? I understand.”

Heron didn’t say anything, but the two of them continued down the tunnel branch. Contrary to what Cillian expected, it wasn’t a straightforward Fount, but one that branched every now and then, but merged back together too. At the very bottom of the maze was the largest chamber, and nearly a hundred of the monsters. In the middle of it was a strangely shaped pedestal of the same make as the gate frame. Nestled on top of it was a small earthen brown crystal with golden highlights.

The moment her perception, through the sunblade, touched it, the crystal trembled. Then cracked. Oh.

The grey-skinned humanoids, who had been standing around placidly, suddenly shook themselves. They eyed each other warily. Some even made dominance displays, growling and slamming their claws together.

In the meantime, the monsters that her people fought suddenly grew much more ferocious. Not that they were any harder to kill, but certainly noticeable.

Devotee didn’t seem to notice, as immersed as he was with smashing them to pieces. Desire noticed. Her hymns grew harsher and the music tore the grey-skinned to pieces.

One of the monsters managed to claw Gwendith, but her frost scales were more than enough to protect her. The offending limb froze over, and the body heat extracted by the contact was flung towards another foe and melted a hole through its torso. As for Heron and Cillian, her childhood friend and hopeful paramour held an unbreachable line while the patrol lieutenant flung fire orbs one after the other until their foes were nothing but burning corpses.

Yuriko thinned the stampede before they could overwhelm the others but otherwise didn’t do anything else. She kept an eye on the pedestal, but the crystal continued to shatter, and when the last fragment crumbled away, the Chaos Fount began to shake and tremble.

“What’s happening?” Cillian yelled. “Did someone get to the core area already?”

“What does that mean?” Heron asked.

“Hmm, if the core is broken, the Fount will collapse.”

“Should we not leave?”

“Yes, we should. It will not prove fatal if it collapses while we’re inside, but it would be extremely uncomfortable. Can you contact the others?”

“Yuriko will tell them,” Heron said confidently.

Ah, she should tell the others, huh.

“Return immediately,” she said through her perception. Gwendith and the two Chaos Lords turned back and hurried. Ten minutes later, the tunnels were just about to cave in. Only Heron and Cillian managed to return to the entrance chamber, though the other three were close enough that Yuriko used her kinesis to grab them. “Out, now.” She pointed towards the open gate and everyone piled out.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

In the clearing, the gate frame was riddled with cracks, and soon enough, crumbled to nothing and snuffed the oval gate.

“I guess the Fount was too new and unstable,” Cillian said apologetically.

“Hmm, it doesn't matter,” Yuriko said off-handedly. Gwendith stared at her with narrowed eyes, and Yuriko avoided her gaze, signalling the other not to say anything.

“Ah, lean harvests. A pity.” Cillian continued as they made their way back to the Wind Darter.

“How much will the claws sell for anyway?” Yuriko asked.

‘About a silver an IJin,” Cillian answered easily. “Average. Depends really on how much ore can be refined from it. The Adventurer’s Guild or the Delver’s Office in town will buy them wholesale.”

Yuriko had harvested the fallen, including the ones from the chambers the others didn’t reach. She had roughly a dozen Jin worth of claws, so a hundred twenty silvers? It seems it was fifty silvers to a gold.

Among the things she and Cillian had talked about was the value of Bresian coinage. There were the golds and silvers. There were also copper pence, bronze bits, and iron scrap. The copper pence pieces were roughly a hundredth the value of a silver, while the bronze bits were half a copper, and the iron scrap was worth a tenth of a pence. The gold and silver were large, circular coins and were quite a bit heavy. The copper pence were smaller coins, circular like the silver and gold. The bronze bit looked like a copper pence cut in half, except it was made of bronze, and the iron scrap were small rectangular tags of pig iron.

“In an emergency, the iron scrap can be used in a forge to make an ingot,” Cillian admitted. A slice of bread could be bought by a single iron scrap, while a poor meal could run from a bit to a couple of pence. A room at a modest inn was at least a silver, and floor space in a common room at night could go for a couple of pence.

“A hundred and twenty silvers is a good haul,” Yuriko said.

“Hmmm, you got that much?” Cillian asked, turning around to walk backwards. The route back to the Wind Darter had been smoothened by their original passage, allowing them the luxury of not having to watch their footing so much.

“Sure did,” Yuriko chuckled, tapping her backpack.

“Yes, it's a respectable haul,” he agreed, “but too bad the Chaos Fount collapsed. It would have been worth a few golds to report it to the office.”

“Hmm, pity.”

Gwendith sidled up to her and hissed. “You broke it, didn’t you?”

Yuriko rolled her eyes. “You think so little of me?” she whispered in a plaintive tone.

“No, it’s that I know you well.” Gwendith snickered, “And you didn’t deny it.”

“What are we talking about?” Heron asked as he slowed down to walk next to the two women.

“Yuri probably broke the Fount,” Gwendith tattled.

“Hmmm.” Heron gave Yuriko a smouldering sideways look that gave her a pleasant shiver. “Yeah, probably.”

Yuriko huffed. “It was an accident.”

“Isn’t it always?” Heron chuckled. “But that does mean you probably shouldn’t bother delving.”

Yuriko rolled her shoulders and said, “If it's as boring as that, I guess not. I’m actually looking forward to seeing their libraries.”

“Where’s the meathead we all know and love?” Gwendith gasped, then shrieked in laughter when Yuriko pinched her side. She knew where Gwen’s weak points were. The noise would have drawn Cillian’s attention up ahead, if not for the fact that Yuriko contained the sounds with her Anima.

Heron bumped his shoulder against hers. “She’s grown up,” all while smirking from his lofty height, exceeding hers by a whole six inches.

“Hmph!” Yuriko sniffed, then poked his side with a finger. His lips twitched, but he didn’t react beyond that. Hmmm.

She was eyeing Heron up when they finally reached the Wind Darter. Gwendith had a cute pout, while he remained mostly stoic, though the tips of his ears were slightly red. They wordlessly came abroad and Yuriko took the helm, activated the ship’s engines and runescript weaving, and took them above the canopy. She chucked the pack with the spoils to Heron who accepted the duty and settled against one of the railings.

Felbridge was a few longstrides away. The afternoon sun painted the town in a pleasant light. The main road cut through the middle, and went through the bridge, through the other side of town, then continued northeast. The town was protected by a low wall that couldn’t be more than three paces wide, on the eastern side. The westside walls were higher, had crenelations, and three towers that had gun emplacements on top. There were only a couple out in the open, manned by soldiers who looked somewhat lackadaisical.

“Disgraceful,” Cillian muttered, scowling at the gunner who was sitting on a stool and had his bare feet resting on the wall.

“Must be a boring post,” Heron commented.

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve not been in this part of the country in a long while. But it seems Felbridge is far enough from the wasteland to see little conflict from the beasts. Look.” He pointed at a group of disparately dressed and armed warriors lined up outside the gate. “Adventurers, I think. There’s quite a bit of them.”

The adventurers were in groups of four or five, and at least ten groups were waiting to enter. Most were on foot, though a couple of groups had Steelds in the shape of horses. Each group looked competent and vigilant, with always one member keeping an eye on the forest. The Wind Darter was spotted almost as soon as they came within sight, and at least half of the adventurers turned to observe the sloop. The other half continued to watch the forest while the gate guard processed their entrance.

As it were, the sloop wouldn’t fit through the town. They didn’t actually have to enter, so Yuriko decided that they should cross the ravine without using the bridge, land on the opposite side, and have someone enter the eastern side to go to the guild building and sell the loot.

“Yes, that might be for the best. Let me notify the authorities here so we won’t be hassled.” Cillian said, and when Yuriko agreed, he stared casting a spell.

Contrary to before, he did not draw in the Fire elemental energy into his body this time. Instead, his fingers writhed in complex patterns while he murmured under his breath. The words were, surprisingly, in Old Imperial. “...call upon the spirits of the wind and sound, bring my words to the Magistrate of Felbridge…” then he uttered a string of nonsensical words and numbers that were clearly an authentication code of some sort.

Elemental energy, not just Fire, but a conglomeration of many elements, not just Wind either, created a white orb in front of his lips. Sweat poured down his face and the strain was clearly evident. Then, he blew on the orb and it shot towards the town.

“There, we should expect a reply in half an hour, at least,” he muttered.

“Well, I guess we can land here and have Heron go to the Adventurers’ Guild,” Yuriko said.

“I’ll go too!” Gwendith yelled.

Heron nodded and said to Yuriko, “Stay out of trouble by staying on board.”

“Hey!” Yuriko protested, but the two of them simply snickered.

Cillian looked confused, then offered to come with them, to which Heron agreed. Yuriko landed the ship and watched them head towards the gate. The three of them were immediately the focus of the adventurers’ gazes.

Hmmm, well, if trouble did find them, Yuriko was sure they could handle it.