Vayra climbed the rest of the distance to the upper control dome in a matter of hours. Though the upside-down dome was smaller than the main greenhouse, it was all relative. The upper dome was still large enough to fit an entire harbour inside it—and, like the main dome, the central dividing wall still divided it in half.
Vayra reached the top of the root cord. Like the other intersections between root and glass, years of neglect left the root pressing right up against the glass, with absolutely no way to squeeze through.
She hung in place for a few seconds, the fingers of her mechanical hand wedged tight into the cracks in the root and her stone dagger jabbed straight into the side flesh of the root. But the longer she hung, unmoving, the more time she gave Larra to catch up. The woman was no longer a distant speck. Vayra could make out her every detail now—down to the flowing, dark cloak.
But, a few yards to the side, there was a hole in the bottom glass of the control dome. It was rectangular and entirely intentional, and chunks of wood hung around the edge.
‘There used to be a staircase here,’ Phasoné commented. ‘It wound all the way up from the worker housing, but that’s long since crumbled.’
“It had to be the staircase, huh?” Vayra shifted over to the edge of the root, keeping her fingers and hands wedged into the bark. She got as close as she could to the opening, but there was still a vast distance to leap. She targeted the far side of the rectangular hole; it’d be the easiest to latch onto.
“Alright, kitty,” she whispered to Adair. “Hold on tight.” Adair’s claws sank into her cloak.
She took a deep breath, preparing herself to leap, but a blast of sharp water-Arcara surged past. She lifted a hand and shifted to the side. The water splashed against the Moulded-Arcara and glass of dome above harmlessly.
Vayra swung for a few seconds before grabbing hold of the root with her other hand. Larra was in range.
As quickly as she could, she Braced her legs and pressed them up against the root, then kicked off. She sailed through the air, reaching up for the ledge. If she missed, it was a straight plummet to the surface. Miles below…
Her fingers latched onto the edge. Her flesh hand slipped, but her mechanical arm clung on. It was up to her willpower and Arcara control, not the strength of her muscles.
Yelling, she pulled herself up the to ledge, then rolled inside the upper dome and splayed her arms out to the side. She’d been climbing almost for a day and a half, and now had to do this. Her muscles burned and her lungs heaved, but she pushed herself up. She didn’t know how long she had until Larra arrived.
The floor around the stair hole was wooden boards stacked atop the glass, keeping as flat as it could until it reached the edges, where the dome sloped up. The light from below didn’t illuminate the dome much, so she conjured her seer-core and held it up. This level was two storeys. It was a lobby, with different hallways and chambers branching off in all directions—all except towards the central wall.
On the other side of the central glass dividing wall, there were more rooms, and the control dome continued, but there was no way over to the other side. At least, not yet.
“Alright, Phas,” Vayra said. “Where are we heading?”
‘We need to keep near the central wall, and we need to get as high as we can. If there’s a way to cross between them, it’s higher up there.’
Vayra drew her pistol, ready to funnel power through it, and took a step. Dust clouded the air, and it turned everything hazy. Brown wisps swirled around her feet. After a few more steps, her toes clipped a thin wire.
Moulded Arcara. It had been almost invisible, and with the dust, entirely shrouded. It shattered when her boot scraped it, evaporating into sparks. Vayra gulped. “What was that?”
‘Magic tripwire,’ Phasone said. ‘Be wary. You should have been paying attention with your spiritual sight.’
“You could have reminded me…” Vayra pulled Adair off her shoulder, then drew him into the corespace.
She raised her pistol and held it ahead of her, turning in a circle. The walls, made entirely of twisted branches and vines, shifted. A mud golem pushed out of the wall—pre-formed and solid. It let out a deep bellow that made Vayra’s arms shudder, then smashed the ground with its fists. The wooden boards cracked, revealing the unbreakable dome floor beneath.
It was exactly like the golems protecting the kausisia platform, except there was only one, and its armour wasn’t nearly as rigid or complete.
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‘It’s not as strong, then,’ Phasoné commented.
Vayra squinted at it, allowing her spiritual sight to take over, and she weighed the strength of its Arcara against hers. She couldn’t see its core—it probably didn’t have one—but the Arcara felt about the same strength and purity as her own.
She raised her eyebrows, then pointed the pistol at it. She fired a beam of starlight-Arcara. The concentrated beam blasted a thin hole straight through its chest, but the golem kept charging.
It was twice as tall as she was. A little finger-width hole in its chest did nothing.
She dove to the side, avoiding the golem’s charge and letting it slam itself into the opposite wall.
From deep within her core, she caught a wisp of thoughts. Her single straight beam was excellent for breaking heavily armoured targets and hurting smaller God-heirs, but she’d need something more substantial to take out the golem.
Phasoné? Vayra thought. Was that you?
But she already knew the answer. It was.
Phasoné wanted them to use the scythe. It made the most sense. Vayra donated control of her mechanical arm, and the scythe began to form. With a quick glance at the seer-core, she determined that she had about half her mana supplies, accumulated from the ambient mana in the air. It’d be enough.
Then, as the scythe was forming, she consumed the rest of the seer-core to activate her Astral Shroud.
The golem turned around with a creak. It raised its fists, tightening them and turning them into hammers.
Then, with another bellow, it charged.
Vayra clenched and flexed all her muscles, then let everything fall loose again. She took a step to the side, but instead of letting the Shroud’s speed run wild, she only moved a single pace out of the golem’s way.
As the creature lumbered past, she swung the scythe’s blade through the back of the golem’s calf, sending it stumbling. The scythe left a bigger gash than it ever had before at the lower stages, and the edges of the cut glowed white-hot instead of red-hot.
The brute was done for.
Vayra sprinted forwards, catching up to the golem in a flash. She hacked through the rest of the golem’s leg, then spun around it, delivering a pattern of cuts that she and Phasoné had drilled into themselves. The Astral Shroud burned around her hands, and it started to crawl up the haft of the scythe. Each swipe came faster and faster, and the shining, burning scythe blade slid through its target with ease—whether it was a big cut or small.
In seconds, she flashed around the fallen golem, cleaving it up into hundreds of tiny pieces. Finally, with a pop, it burst apart into chunks of mud and roots, scattering across the floor. The power fled out of its channels and filled the air, joining the ambient mana.
Vayra deactivated all of her techniques and dropped to one knee. “Alright, I’ll admit it…that felt good.”
Aside from nearly burning through most of her mana, that is.
‘Unless you find a patch of unpurified Stream water that you can draw mana from, you’d best start conserving it. Let the ambient mana here fill you back up.’
Vayra nodded in agreement. She stood back up and kept walking, but this time, she kept her spiritual sight active. It might have required a little more concentration, but if there were traps, she’d find them.
Reforming her seer-core, she set off into the darkness of the nearest tunnel. There would have to be a stairway in here somewhere.
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Glade spent a day running through the forest, trying to catch up with Ameena. He only used his enhanced body sparingly—to leap across gullies or skirt around the largest patches of the orchard.
But, at midnight, when the moons shone directly down on the greenhouse from above, he had to stop. He had reached the peak of Master already, and he hoped he had prepared his core enough…
The run, the little extra cycling and conversion of mana, was enough to push him over the edge.
As Nathariel had explained, he wouldn’t have to undergo such a rigorous core preparation step like Vayra did—being a human with mild spiritual potential, his core had never been set to an element or altered in any way, and he didn’t need to cleanse it and make it malleable to a Path. It already was.
A spike of energy ran through his core. He stopped running, using his mana and following Nathariel’s instructions, as best as he remembered—and following Vayra’s process. That still reigned vivid in his mind.
He found a sheltered crater only a few paces away, and he tucked into it. On one side, a fallen log hid him from view, and on the other side, a mound of dirt and rotting fruit shielded him from sight.
He didn’t know how long it would take, but he shut his eyes and got to work. If he held it back, he could hurt himself.
By the time he finished the advancement, he wanted to collapse, and there wasn’t much he could do about the encroaching darkness and exhaustion. He might have passed out for a few hours, or it might have just taken hours to complete the advancement, but when he opened his eyes, it was morning.
He had lost a lot of ground.
But then he lifted his fingers, opening and closing them, and they tingled with newfound strength. They wanted to move. They wanted to latch onto his sword’s hilt, and he wanted to swing it.
Shutting his eyes, he tried to ignore the sting in his channels. They felt like they were about to crumble or rip, or both. His weak potential wasn’t supposed to have so much power flowing so quickly.
But he’d made it to Third Lieutenant, against anyone’s expectations. He had to keep going.
He took off into the woods, travelling in the same direction that Ameena had. Sooner than later, he’d find the guardsmen’s fortress—and maybe something to keep himself advancing.