It took a bit longer to reach the rally point. It was Outpost Sigma attached to a resource biome, and all three ships had to dodge around pursuers for a couple of days before they shook them off. That they even managed to recover the Cyclops was a miracle in itself but the warden crew had angled the ship away from Omega and used what limited thrust they had to get the journey started. Yuriko’s Rascal and the Darlington Cross came back to pick up the Cyclops, which was the root cause of why it took them twice as long to reach the rally point.
The view of the biome left Yuriko breathless. It was an orb roughly a hundred leagues across. The actual outpost was another sphere, about twenty leagues away from the biome’s surface, and looked much like Outpost Omega. There were only five ships patrolling the border, but the outpost’s surface bristled with guns and missile silos.
Yuriko wondered how Omega fell to the Hartdel Defiant, but apparently, it had been taken from within. Mazoga only knew rumours and the few scraps that slipped through Echoes’ command structure, but the sabotage had been in place for years before it touched off recently.
Yuriko and Heron reviewed their contract with Milstate and determined that another attempt to retake Outpost Omega would be the final task before the contract ended. That or about a couple of years of service.
The Darlington Cross and the Rascal, towing the Cyclops, approached Outpost Lyma. Yuriko let the two captains handle the comms verifications and the docking procedures.
“We’re being directed to head straight to the biome, Master,” Captain Mazoga said.
Yuriko nodded. “Then follow.”
The Rascal broke off and Yuriko watched as they approached the biome. From out in the Void, little differentiated the biome from a dead asteroid. It was dark, looked lifeless, and floated around with no discernible pattern. But once the ship pierced the boundary, its secrets were revealed.
The biome was an orb and upon its surface was green and blue. Vegetation and water. Yuriko looked back, and so not a hint of the Void’s darkness, but a reflection of the Radiant Sun and the Luminous Moon. The boundary between the Void and the biome was fuzzy, and she could feel Chaos, and other hints of Elemental energies, as well as the lingering touch of Ennoias, within the border. It was evershifting, and she thought she saw rifts open and close into the underlying layers of Reality. No one else around her seemed to sense it.
The atmosphere between the surface of the biome to the edge of the Veil was merely a single league. Soon enough they were docking on the single facility in the entire biome, Lyma Station. It was a small fortress embedded into the mountainside and while the Rascal wasn’t a Milstate-built ship, it fit well enough into the cradle.
And now, they would settle down to resupply and wait for reinforcements. In the meantime, she and the rest of Stormdriven were to act as an extra layer of security.
It would be a bit of a long wait, she thought, and perhaps a miniature vacation. The biome certainly looked better than Dragon Fall City.
In Astoria, Yuriko opened the door to her apartment to see Scarlett carrying a box. On the ground floor, a moving company was carrying a bunch of boxes out of a van and laid it out on the lobby. A couple of young men were waiting for the lift to return to their level, while another helper was waiting behind Scarlett.
“Hey!” Yuriko grinned as she pulled Scarlett into a quick hug while she subtly supported the box with her kinesis. “Come in, come in.” She pulled her smol friend inside and beckoned to the helper to follow.
Scarlett giggled and plopped down her burden. “I still can’t believe you got this place.”
“You helped pick this out, so it’s your fault,” Yuriko snarked.
“Oh, yeah?” Scarlett scoffed. “And if I tell you to parade around naked, would you do it?”
Yuriko grinned cheekily as she pressed her forefinger on her cheek. “Maybe.”
“Hmph, stop pulling my leg!” Scarlett scoffed. “Well, which bedroom is mine?”
Yuriko smirked and nodded to the master bedroom.
“Very funny,” Scarlett grumbled. “I’ll pick that one.”
Aside from the master, the other two bedrooms were mirrors of each other. The apartment came with furniture and appliances, practically a hotel, so the only thing Yuriko and Scarlett had to bring were their clothes and other personal effects. Her friend brought her box into her bedroom and supervised the rest of the movers. There were only a dozen boxes or so, and it was a quick affair. A cursory examination revealed that most were books and other school things, a single box full of odds and ends, and the rest were clothes. After Scarlett settled with the movers, she joined Yuriko for dinner.
“Did you pay for a cleaning service?” Scarlett asked. “Everything’s spotless and I know you’re not the neatest person around.”
Yuriko snorted. “You wound me, Scar…Eheh.”
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“Hmph, very funny,” Scarlett rolled her eyes.
“And to answer your question, no. I didn’t hire any service to clean or launder.”
“How do you find time to do chores then?”
Yuriko placed the dirty dishes in the sink, then smoothly cast Cleanse. The cantrip was a five-component spell that she cast in less than a second, though the visual tells were rather eye-catching. Dirt, waste food, and oils covering the dishes flared with white light then dissipated.
She smirked at Scarlett who goggled at the display.
“I knew you were an Altered, Lily, but what the eff was that?” Scarlett grumbled.
Yuriko shrugged. “A cleaning spell.”
“A spell? What, are you a witch now?” Scarlett said sarcastically. “Will you capture me and bake me in your oven?”
Yuriko tapped her lips then stuck out the tip of her tongue. “Maybe? I’m sure you’re delicious.”
“Yeah? Uh…” Scarlett’s words backed up her throat and she glared at Yuriko while blushing furiously. “No, seriously, what’s that?”
“A spell,” Yuriko repeated, her tone equally serious. “A handy way to manipulate ambient energies using a pattern. Anyone can learn it.”
“Which begs the question, where did you?”
Yuriko smiled ingeniously. “You do remember that I was part of the Occult Research Club, right?”
While the clubroom had esoteric tomes, none of them were actual spellbooks. But occult theory was somewhat sound and reminded Yuriko of a similar phenomenon she encountered in her travels. Ironically, that land was also plagued by daemons. Karcellia and Irvala felt so distant in both time and space that she barely remembered what had happened there. The region was certainly a bit more primitive than Astoria, but it held so many secrets beneath that she wondered if every realm had something similar.
That rabbit man that guarded Damien's shards was a Progeny, she was sure. She had not really known what they were until she reviewed the memories, and what was there was censured heavily, leaving only a tiny bit more than what she knew. Progeny were…well, children of Ascended beings. They dwelled in the Firmament, the layers above the Equilibrium, only…unlike the Abyss, the Firmament was over everything, not just the Chaos Sea.
If she continued to climb the Eternal Tower, would she actually reach their domain? Idle thoughts that led nowhere. Perhaps of more import were where the rest of the shards wound up in. She hadn’t felt any kind of call other than the one that led her to Bresia, but as soon as she arrived in Dragon Fall, there was nothing.
Was there a shard near Bresia, then? Probably. Did she want to get them and potentially open herself up to Damien’s consciousness? This time, it would be a piece of him that didn’t know her, and would be more than happy to take over.
She felt her Radiant Core pulse. She listened for a while, then gravely sat down in a meditative pose. Both of her bodies.
She knew he used Radiance, and it was he who was the source of her power. But…
The Radiant Throne is Empty.
Only One Can Claim It.
She felt her surroundings ripple and freeze. Her breath came out in a gasp. A horrific insight suffused all of her, and she knew…there was no running from this.
If she did not claim and subjugate Damien’s shards, then it would only be a matter of time before whatever incarnation he cultivated would come and subjugate her.
The Radiant Throne was empty. And only one can claim it.
She stared at the reflection of the Radiant Sun and wondered if the throne was inside of it. And if it was, how in the Abyss would she even go about getting there?
She closed her eyes and somehow, found herself in the dreamscape. She frowned in annoyance. She didn’t intend to come here. Her smaller avatar floated towards the Quintessence. Well, as long as she was here anyway…
The moment her little fingers touched the screen, something came barreling towards her from the mists.
A thread thick enough to be called a pillar arrived in her vicinity and condensed into a rope. It snaked towards her true body and wrapped around her, before it stabbed into her heart. She caught the tip of the thread and it coiled around her hand. Her consciousness flew down the connection.
The vision was hazy, but she thought she heard an infant’s cry. Darkness and pain, but warmth and light too. Along with the connection, she felt kinship.
The connection cut almost as soon as it appeared, and the thread slowly withered. The connection resonated with Yuriko, and she reflexively took hold of it. A tiny bit of her Radiant energy seeped into the connection, and along with it came awareness.
And disbelief.
“I’m a mother?” she muttered with extreme disbelief. “But…wait…” She frowned as she reviewed her memories. “Really? Blood?” Cold sweat ran down her spine as she considered what kind of things an Archmagus could do. But more importantly, why would he even want to?
Shard? Why else would she be drawn to Bresia? Only, the thing had been in another country. Her dreamscape body’s grip tightened on the thread. She had a choice. Snap the connection and prevent herself from being entangled with the Fate of an artificially created offspring, or hang on and see. How she could retrieve the shard, and perhaps, just as importantly, find out if her child would be treated as human, or merely a tool. Either way, it was another reason to return to Bresia, not that she needed any more.
But she needed to be stronger.
But how long could the child wait?
“Rotter,” she swore as tension and stress built up. She could have the Rascal return to Milstate’s prime outpost and return to Dragon Fall, then fight her way to the Gate Consortium’s tower. Though she didn’t know how to return to Bresia, she was sure the information was in that place.
But she couldn’t fight an Archmagus by herself. She would need the help of Bresia’s Grand Magi. Unless she reached Manifestation, she would have little chance.
“Patience,” she hissed. “All will be repaid in full. In time.”
The connecting thread withered until only a tiny bit of its original girth remained, but it was enough to send some of her energy through it. Perhaps it might make a difference, and perhaps not, but at least she’ll know that the child was alive. And if something happened to it…to her…then once she had the power, she would burn Ishodir to the ground.
“Lily?” Scarlett touched Yuriko’s shoulder, jolting her out of her meditation. She shook her head and looked up at her friend’s worried face. “You…are you alright? I haven’t heard you say anything for an hour now…”
“I’m fine,” Yuriko forced herself to calm. She smiled up at Scarlett. “Just thinking of somethings.”
“Well, go take a bath so you can rest. Your schedule was brutal,” she remarked.
“It was alright, fun, even,” Yuriko laughed.
“Yeah, I guess,” Scarlett giggled. “Now shoo, go bathe.”
Yuriko let Scarlett nudge her along, and she had half a mind to drag the petite woman in with her. But the rest of her was still disquieted, so she soaked in the bathtub for half an hour, threw on a bathrobe, changed into a nightie, then flopped into bed. She’d think of what to do tomorrow with a fresh perspective.
For now, rest.