As the carriage continued up the winding road, Diogen grabbed a necklace tucked under his breastplate and began to quietly mumble prayers as his thumb unconsciously rubbed against the pendant attached to it. The quiet prayers rasped against the wooden framing of the vehicle as every bump in the road felt as he became louder and louder, with Anaxi, who was looking out the window and watching the scenery go by, partially putting his helmet back on to silence the sound. Eventually, Myrdan moved her uninjured arm forward to his forehead as he continued to pray before lightly flicking him in the head, causing him to snap out of his trance and furiously rub the spot where he was hit.
"You didn't need to do that," he spoke venomously, the necklace now dangling freely as Myrdan leaned back, "You know the testament. Bad luck to interrupt prayer." Myrdan simply laughed as she leaned back against the fine velvet, her almost oily black hair cascading down her back and shoulders as she painfully moved her wounded arm.
"Only by one "whole of body"," she jeeringly replied as she winced in pain, her arm once again going limp in the bloodstained makeshift sling, "And since I'm the one that got a beam through the arm, does that make me "whole of body"?"
"Fair point, Myrdan. Although, you were lucky it was one of the framing beams and not a body panel," Anaxi soon spoke up, moving away from his position and leaning forward, placing his arms on his knees, "If it was one of those, we'd have to be picking you up in pieces."
"Wait, seriously?" Diogen spoke, shocked at the almost casual reveal, "I thought ornithopters were a lot tougher than that. Don't those also act as a roll cage in case of crashes?"
"Yeah, they do," Anaxi replied, sighing as he looked down, a frown climbing up onto his face, "But not always. Since we have- I mean, had, to crank the things out rapidly to get them to the front, some standard practices were... overlooked. The framing of the chassis was one of them. Weaker metals were used in the frames, while the body panels remained the same. A lot of the operators that died during the fighting around Sevastopol were sent to the afterlife because of this."
"And they didn't bother fucking fixing it." Myrdan spat as she poked her head out, blinking as she realized they were almost at the gates, "But now's the time to look alive. I have a feeling we're going to be meeting some people soon."
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Sometime after their arrival in Ejey, Diogen, Myrdan, and Anaxi were taken into a building within the city, although Nou had quite literally scooped Myrdan off of her feet and carried her rather than letting her walk on her own. Anaxi and Diogen nearly drew their wrist blades in response, despite their lowered guard, with Nou simply frowning as he placed her onto a bed they had made, before walking out and practically slamming the door behind him. As the three Mekhanites began to get comfortable, however, a young man soon walked into the room, his short, chin-length hair held back by a hairband. Seemingly ignoring the other two Mekhanites, he walked right by them and began to mumble something under his breath, before kneeling in front of Myrdan and placing his hands over her wounded arm. Eventually, it was strung into understandable, yet foreign words as the candles in the room began to flicker and brighten.
"Ibe... Wonas... Kalred... Helgas..." The young man continued to mumble as Myrdan felt a sudden stinging sensation, wincing as the metal piece began to slowly worm its way out of her, her flesh both tearing and healing as the metal bar pushed itself out. Soon, it clattered to the floor, with her skin rapidly closing and healing to the point that there was barely even a scar.
"Thank you, mister...?" Her words began to slowly slur as she looked away, seemingly thinking about what the man's name was.
"I am Yagou, madam. A member of Qua-Tyone's Foreign Affairs Ministry." The now-named man answered, nodding before getting up from his kneeling position and dusting himself off, "I was informed of your crash-landing and your injuries while I was in Maihark. Took a wyvern to get here before they could give me everything, however."
"Hopefully it wasn't the one we collided into," Diogen spoke up, a look of slight fear on his face, "Nearly tore its wing in half." Yagou winced at what Diogen had mentioned, before shaking his head out and calmly bowing to him, with a smile still plastered on his face.
"I assure you, it was not. The crash I believe had happened while I was on my way here. Although, I did hear it. Put the fear of the Gods into me." Yagou spoke as he opened the door and began to walk out, the three Mekhanites following quickly after. Once the four of them had gotten out, they came face-to-face with the ornithopter.
To say "it was not in the best state" would be putting the damage mildly. Of the twelve wings that the machine had used to fly, only two remained, and each of them was bent nastily at a nearly 90-degree angle. The top of the craft and some of the front were partially caved in as the frame had snapped during the impact. The tail of the machine was nearly severed completely from the engine exploding, and pieces of shrapnel stuck out of it like a deadly, metallic porcupine. On top of that, it was covered in dents and scratches due to the subsequent tumbling and skidding after the impact. Due to the heavy damage, it was being carried on what appeared to be a specially-made carriage. The three Mekhanites almost gawked at the nearly destroyed machine, but before anyone could say a word, Myrdan immediately grabbed Anaxi's gauntlet and began to clamber over and into the monstrously-damaged machine, practically prying off one of the broken doors before climbing inside.
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"Uh, madam, I don't think you should do that-" Yagou spoke before Diogen gently covered his mouth with his hand, smiling as bits and pieces of scrap metal and shrapnel began to get chucked out of the door into a pile just outside.
"Leave it to Myrdan to fix it, buddy," Diogen interrupted as a massive metal strut was thrown out of the hole and landed in the pile with a loud clang, spooking a few nearby horses, "Or at the very least, get a tilemet beacon going. Also, she's a bit tech-crazy, so it might be best to leave her alone for now."
"I'll take that into account. But I must ask, what is a tilemet? Some sort of magical item?"
"No, it's a teleportation device. We weren't issued them as standard, but the automatic return system is designed to immediately recover any ornithopter crew that stayed in the machine after the crash."
"Yeah, except this ours is broken," Myrdan piped up as she popped her head out of the hole in the ornithopter, holding what appeared to be a broken, chrome-colored box full of holes, sparking away before she tossed it into the pile of scrap, "My best guess is the engine is to blame. Blew up during the crash, so a few bits and pieces got chucked around, and that's the result. Now if you excuse me for a sec-"
"Hold on, madam!" Yagou spoke up as he grabbed onto Myrdan's shoulder, twirling her to face him and causing her to yelp quietly, "You still need to answer my questions! Who are you? Where are you from, WHY are you here?!"
"We're Mekhanites," Anaxi spoke up with a small amount of pride as a small breeze began to come in, his short, brown hair blowing lightly, "And to get introductions out of the way, I'm Anaxi. The girl is Myrdan, and that guy over there is Diogen. We're worshippers of Mekhane, our Broken Goddess."
"Well then, what about where you came from? There is no country to the Northeast! Unless-" Yagou suddenly paused, causing the Mekhanites in attendance to immediately pause.
"Unless what?" They spoke in chorus, their eyes wide open.
"Unless your country was... summoned here."
"WHAT?!" The three Mekhanites shouted, the volume of their voices echoing off of the walls of Ejey, causing Yagou to cover his ears in reflex.
"That's the only option we have to explain this! Wait, what about your nation? What's its name?"
"Uh, the Mekhanite Empire?" Myrdan spoke as she climbed back into the ornithopter, the sound of the replicator humming as she poked her head out to Diogen and Anaxi, "Good news is the replicator still works."
"Good," Diogen spoke as Myrdan got back in, soon climbing out of the broken machine with a tilemet beacon in hand, "And now we can head back. We'll be out of your hair shortly, Yagou."
"Please, do not leave just yet," Yagou countered as he walked up to the three Mekhanites, "I still need to talk with your nation's leader about the violation of our airspace. Something like that, if left unchecked, could spur the hawks to war."
The three Mekhanites looked at each other, then back at Yagou, then back at each other. Myrdan sighed and climbed back into the wrecked ornithopter, emerging once again with another colored box, albeit in a more brass coloration than the original chrome one. Reaching into the box, she grabbed what appeared to be the handle to a phone, before beginning to speak into it.
"Have the Archon's trimaran go to the edge of the maritime border. We met a diplomat, and he wants to talk about an... incident." A voice of confirmation soon spoke before a click was heard, with Myrdan chucking the box back into the ornithopter and it disintegrating on contact with the wall. Before Yagou could respond, however, Myrdan grabbed onto his wrist and gave the tilemet beacon to Anaxi, who looked at it puzzlingly. Surprisingly, the Theban Mekhanite nodded instead of looking confused, opening a door on the box to reveal a massive glass tube, containing a flickering sliver of blue lightning. Going to a set of holographic dials on the door, he began to spin them, letting them beep in response to the rapid inputs before finally stopping. Anaxi nodded to himself before flicking a switch on the bottom of the door, causing the box to rise to about chest height, before becoming enveloped in blue light.
"What is it doing?!" Yagou shouted as he almost reflexively held tightly onto Myrdan, causing her to sigh as a bolt of lightning suddenly arced out, slamming into the wrecked ornithopter and covering it in a ball of light. With a loud BANG, it disappeared in a brilliant flash of blue, leaving only a small area of scorched wood in the carriage where the lightning had impacted the ground.
After the ornithopter disappeared, Myrdan tossed Anaxi's gauntlet back to him, with the Theban immediately catching it and putting it on before he was enveloped and disappeared in the same way, with another scorch mark. Diogen was next, sighing as he took a deep breath inwards before he too, disappeared with a loud BANG.
"First time being teleported?!" Myrdan practically yelled as a loud whine was heard from the box, an almost cheerful smile on her face as she grabbed onto Yagou and pulled him in, holding him as tightly as she could.
"Um, yes?!" He replied, fear plastered on his face as the same blue light began to creep around the two of them.
"Then hold on tight! And don't crap your pants!" Myrdan spoke as Yagou did what he was told, reciprocating her bear hug as the blue light covered them both. With the same loud BANG, the two of them, and the box, had disappeared.