The orb was large - larger than Avakian's head - and packed with a dense, oscillating mass of Void. The three Void-tolerant stood, transfixed by its beauty and its terror, until Josef snapped his fingers in front of them.
"What are you guys looking at? It's a crystal ball. Am I missing something?"
They blinked out of their torpor in unison, Chiros draping a large plastic sack around the orb so it couldn't exert any influence on them.
"Best if we leave it alone for now. We can decide what to do with it when we leave." Chiros proposed.
They continued to search the warehouse, looking in particular for traps or hidden foes that might pose a threat to the passengers; whom were still sitting quietly in the truck.
After scouring the guts of the facility, they confirmed that the only living beings were either knocked out, or the ones that they brought with them. They found the living quarters of the warehouse workers; a grim set of windowless rooms packed with rickety bunk-beds.
Josef was walking towards something that caught his interest when his foot slipped on a tarpaulin, revealing a metal trapdoor. Under the door was a lit tunnel, housing a small railway system.
"I think we've found our escape." He called out to the other three.
"What about the other passengers?" Avakian asked. "Are we taking them with us?"
"No." Declared Chiros. "It's better for all of us if we aren't seen together. I broke all the locks in the warehouse; they aren't trapped here anymore."
No-one had any reason to disagree, and they descended the ladder in silence. The tunnel ran in two different directions, and the party chose the one that they suspected went deeper into the city.
Avakian led, flanked by Chiros, whilst the other two travelled behind. As they walked, the foetid air became thicker and harder to breathe. Avakan didn't quite know if it was safe for him or not, but he chose not to complain as the others seemed not to think it was a problem.
They walked for an hour in silence, each of them affected by the shared combat they had experienced.
Ellian was quiet. Oddly so. Despite her bluster and confidence during the battle, she now seemed to be calm and contemplative. Avakian wasn't sure how much of her abrasive personality was actually her, and how much of it was a front she used as a form of social protection.
Josef looked far more nervous than before. Every so often his hands would convulse in a peculiar manner, as if firing an invisible weapon.
Eventually Chiros held up a hand; they had reached a crossroads. Three paths lay before them, one containing a visible exit, visible in the flickerings of light cast on it by a hazard sign.
"It might be best if we split up here." Chiros proposed.
"Why?" Ellian pouted. "Surely it's easier if we just stay as one group."
"I agree." Josef broke his silence. "With Chiros that is. It's astronomically unlikely the Marisia government is out to get us, but if they are, staying as a group would paint us a target."
"I uh.. Don't actually know how to get where we're going." Avakian spoke up.
He knew their destination was Olo, a mountain town where they would take the flight to the 72nd Fold, but he lacked the general knowledge the others were relying upon.
"After Marisia is Damité, then Patar, then finally Olo." Josef filled in helpfully. "But I still think it would be easier if you travelled with one of us. None of them saw my face, so I think I am in the clear."
"Alright, it's settled." Chiros decided. "Josef and Avakian go left, I will take the centre route, and Ellian can take the right."
"I grabbed a few radio armlets from the facility." Josef explained, handing each of them a bracelet with a tiny screen and a dial. "The radio is intrafold, you won't be able to contact each other if you go between folds, but it should work anywhere in the 73rd."
Chiros clasped his shoulder in gratitude, then walked forward confidently, into the most sinister looking tunnel that lacked any form of lighting.
Avakian nodded to Ellian before they headed down their route. Chiros had picked the easiest route for them as the ladder was already within sight.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Avakian ascended the ladder first, already feeling the heat of the afternoon through the aluminium hatch. He couldn't hear any footsteps, so he surmised they weren't in public, but he could hear the noises of a crowd within the vicinity.
He exited the hatch, giving a hand to Josef as he followed. The two were in some kind of curved alleyway, the majority of the noise coming from one end.
They walked cautiously, unaware of where they were, or whose property they were on.
After a while they found the source of the crowd they had heard; a road with a marketplace lay at the end of the alleyway. Quite different from Castings, this market was a battlefield. Hawkers screaming at buyers and one another, customers bargaining as if their firstborn was on the line. Avakian even saw a head of lettuce being used as a ballistic in an argument between two shopkeepers.
"Marisian shopping is an acquired taste." Josef explained to the flabbergastered Avakian. "They are very passionate about their markets here. You won't be taken seriously unless you're screaming bloody murder about cabbage prices."
They navigated out the market, Josef nearly being knocked out by someone negotiating the price for a jumper. Avakian himself was fine, his childlike frame and prescient reflexes allowing him to avoid most of the market-goers.
Every so often Josef would stop and talk to a particularly receptive looking local, searching for travel to either Damité, Patar or Olo.
---
The first travel centre they found used trucks to ship passengers across the desert, and both Avakian and Josef baulked at that. Travelling in the sweltering heat was bad enough without being stuck in a conductive metal container.
The next one they found was located in a scrapyard. The locale was highly suspect, but they had been assured by the locals that it was completely sound. They walked up to the main 'reception', a dingy shack next to a pile of detritus, and knocked on the door.
They heard the sounds of a man rising from a chair; followed by the sounds of a man stubbing his toe on a desk and swearing profusely. The door opened inwards, unveiling a man in his middling years, with a beard down to his chest and the greenish skin of a Marisian native.
"You lads here to hire?" He asked, voice blocked slightly by the bulk of his facial hair.
"We heard you facilitate travel between here and Damité or Patar." Josef stated.
The man paused, appearing not to understand what 'facilitate' meant.
"We don't do that. I can sell you a bike or quad, then you can sell it back to one of my brothers when you arrive." He explained gruffly.
"You have a brother in Olo?" Avakian asked.
"Oh yes. I have brothers all over the 73rd Fold. Sisters too; my father had many wives." He laughed as if it was a joke. Avakian didn't get it.
"Let me show you our stock." The man ushered them around to the back, where several dozen vehicles were covered by grey tarpaulin. Presumably the cover was to keep the sun off as Avakian hadn't spotted a single rain-cloud since he'd touched 73rd Fold territory.
"What'll you be wanting?" He asked, stripping the tarps off of the vehicles.
"I'll take the four-wheeled one." Avakian expressed instantly. He couldn't understand why someone would choose to have less wheels. It just didn't make sense!
The man tutted, then turned to Josef. "What about Orange here? You look like a real man! How about a cruiser?"
He whipped the tarpaulin off the last vehicle in the lot, revealing a lowdown two-wheeler fitted with high handlebars.
The look in Josef's eyes when he saw the painted flames on the sides told Avakian everything he needed to know about his choice.
---
Avakian and Josef left Marisia far more stylishly than they entered. It was unfortunate that they couldn't see more of the city. The 73rd Fold was beautiful, and the culture there seemed interesting, but the risk was too great.
Despite Chiros and Ellian's considerable strength, going up directly against a government was suicide. Their best option was to leave Marisia and the 73rd Fold as quickly as possible.
They had decided to drive throughout the evening until the light conditions were too bad for them to continue. When they stopped they simply set out their sleeping mats under the sky, as the lack of wind and rain allowed.
"You never told us why you wanted to come with us." Avakian remarked, as they were lying beneath the sky.
"Hmm?" Josef turned his head.
"I mean; what's your reason for coming? You have to have one, else you wouldn't be here."
"I heard." He replied quietly.
Neither spoke for several minutes. Avakian could tell that the young man wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words.
"When I was young I was entranced by the world around me. Everything seemed so new and so beautiful and so meaningful. I started studying the natural world around me. Physics, philosophy, mathematics, geography. I read books on everything, learned everything." Josef explained monotonically. "I did well. Won prizes, became the youngest teaching assistant the Academy had ever seen. I loved it."
He paused. Avakian could already sense the shift in Josef's mood before he spoke.
"It was the day after I had submitted my final thesis. It was evening, I was tipsy, and I was sitting on a park bench pondering things. It was then that a thought wormed its way into my head. 'Does it matter?' I thought. 'Does anything matter?'." He recounted bitterly. "Somehow the answer came to me. An answer that I didn't want to believe, but one that I knew without a shadow of a doubt was true."
"It didn't. It didn't matter. One day I would die, and I would become dust, and my dust would become dust, and nothing would remain of Josef Abraxas."
He sighed.
"So I will descend. I will descend until either I die, or I find a reason not to anymore. End of."
Silence.
"Dinner?" Avakian asked, holding out a pastry wrapped in foil.
Josef laughed. "Love some."