The rushing air was deflected from his body as Farmas flew south at his top speed, Syrlia a few dozen feet to his left, keeping pace with him. The faux wings that grew out of their backs didn’t actually do anything to keep them aloft, but they were an affectation that most Guardians used while they were flying, as that felt more appropriate than simply rushing through the air without any means of propulsion. It harkened back to the days when they used to spend more of their time around their slaves, as it served to make them seem more regal, perhaps even angelic, to the masses; perception was sometimes as important as Dominion magic in controlling the population, after all. And while they hadn’t really spent a lot of time among the slaves over the last five or six centuries, most of the Gergasi – including himself and Syrlia – had continued to use them, nonetheless.

With his eyes searching the ground, Farmas allowed his senses to reach out in all directions as he attempted to find the source of Chinli’s death. Well, that wasn’t entirely true, as the two of them had located the source of the unfortunate Guardian’s death approximately a week ago, but the trail had gone cold after that.

It had taken nearly a half-day to finally leave the Enclave after Vilnesh had ordered them to go search out the reason behind Chinli’s demise, as the entire Enclave had been in an uproar after everyone felt her perish. Vilnesh had taken control, at the Grand One’s direction, and told the others that a plan was already in place to investigate, which was where Farmas and Syrlia came in, but the delay in their departure was a result of different factions within the Enclave vying for control of the investigation. As a result, they didn’t actually leave until just before the southeastern Calamity was closed.

Which was just as much of a surprise as when the northwestern Calamity had closed not too long before. Farmas was somewhat glad that the slaves had finally taken responsibility for their own messes and were cleaning them up, but both of the closures were unexpected and from unknown sources. That was unlike the northeastern Calamity, which was being overseen directly by the SIC organization, which was originally set up by the Nobles nearly a thousand years ago at the direction of the Guardians, and which was still nominally run by those directly under their control. Of course, it wasn’t common knowledge that the much-depleted Scission Interception Corps was still under Gergasi control, as they were careful to be largely hands-off so that no suspicion was cast upon their slaves, but the push to close the Calamities was at their direction. Not that Farmas or Syrlia had anything to do with that, as that whole facet of the Kingdom was run by a trio of other Guardians, but the information had filtered out to everyone in the Enclave over the last few days as the SIC was pushed to close the northeastern Calamity, so as not to be left behind as a result of the others closing.

If Farmas had his way, he would’ve taken it upon himself to close all the Calamities himself, but unfortunately, that was not possible. For a reason that no one had been able to determine, even the simple presence of a Guardian from the Enclave inside the territory of the Apertures dotting the landscape of the Kingdom caused it to react abnormally. Some thought it was the sheer strength of the “invaders” that crossed into their territory that made them react that way, while most figured it had to do with the amount of Pure Aetheric Force that leaked out of them, mixing with the Corrupted Aetheric Force that poured out of each Aperture.

Regardless of the reason, what the presence of a Guardian did was cause the Aperture to expand rapidly, while at the same time reinforcing the Aperture’s spherical form to the point where it couldn’t be damaged, no matter how strong they were. Even the Grand One, who was the strongest of all the Gergasi, could barely inflict more than slight damage to an Aperture, which was negligible when it continued to expand while they were inside.

As a result of this, they had to rely on the slaves to close the Calamities and maintain the other Apertures in the Kingdom, which was why they were pushing to close yet another Calamity in the northeast. Letting all the Calamities grow to the point where they were was a mistake, as it had widened the breach near the Enclave on a daily basis, and it was only a matter of time before it became too unstable to keep contained. The closure of two Calamities had, at last report, not only slowed down but shrunk the breach by a miniscule amount, which was a good sign that the Gergasi could keep things in control in the future. All they needed was the SIC to regain control, after the last few years when communication had broken down, and they would be able to work toward stabilizing the amount of Corrupted Aetheric Force in the world.

But they couldn’t have the saviors of the world being killed before that could happen, which was why they were out searching for whatever had killed Chinli. Revenge for her death was also at the top of the list of reasons why there were out searching for her; while Farmas had never cared for her personally, she had been one of their much-diminished family for over a thousand years. One doesn’t just let something like her being killed go if they could do something about punishing those responsible.

Fortunately for their search efforts, the closing of the Calamity had given them a starting point, as they suspected, with it happening so soon after Chinli’s death, that the two events were related. Therefore, when they flew toward the previous center of the Calamity’s territory, they discovered the aftermath of some sort of catastrophic battle, at least according to the lingering traces of magical residue left in the area.

First, and most obvious, was an enormous explosion of some sort that had likely been the culprit behind Chinli’s death. It had been so incredibly large and powerful that it had practically obliterated the Guardian, though they were able to find a shattered skull fragment nearly a mile away from the magical explosive residue, tracked down with the lingering traces of the connection that all Gergasi shared with each other. Even that find had been nearly pure luck, as the connection was almost gone, and Syrlia had barely sensed it as they were flying above the site. Regardless, it was more than enough proof for them to say that it had been the explosion that had killed Chinli.

The second thing they noticed from the battlefield were traces of many dead slaves, with random body parts and dried blood littering a field near one of the Apertures. All of the intact bodies had been taken away by whoever had closed the Calamity, they suspected, but there were still remnants of them leftover on the field which were likely left in their haste to depart. There were still faint traces of Chinli all over the area where these bodies had been at one time, but they were so faint that it was hard to tell what exactly had happened – though the two of them suspected that she had killed many hundreds of people.

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Were they there to try and ambush her and failed? Or was it something else?

He wasn’t sure, but the field of body parts and blood was a bit of distance away from where the explosion had taken place, which had also been in the middle of the air high above the ground – which most likely ruled out any slaves being the ones to kill her.

Lastly, there were traces of something else that confused them at first, as it almost felt like another Gergasi. However, they dismissed that thought because it was extremely weak and might have just been their imagination, and it had dissipated shortly after they arrived, so they couldn’t investigate it any further.

For all that they discovered where Chinli had died, along with hundreds of slaves, Farmas and Syrlia couldn’t find any trace of who or what had done the deed. There was evidence that more people, likely slaves, had been in the area, and there were circular indentations in the grass just outside the territory of what was likely the central Aperture of the Calamity, but that was it.

From there, they went back to the Enclave to make their report to Vilnesh, who had sent them back out to actually find whoever or whatever was responsible. Recently, they had spent weeks combing over the former territory of the Calamity, searching for any sign of the group that had closed it moving around, but they couldn’t find even a single trace. They had to be careful to avoid the many Apertures scattered around, as they didn’t want to cause one to expand uncontrollably by flying through it, but they were still able to cover quite a bit of ground in their search.

Their break came the day before in the form of a flying, wooden, circular box that they witnessed landing near the border of an Aperture, where dozens of slaves rolled out and began attacking the monsters inside – likely with the intent to close the Aperture inside. Unfortunately, as they got close, the slaves seemed to sense them coming and retreated back inside the circular wooden box, which took off to the east before they arrived.

What was the most shocking of the entire encounter, other than seeing a circular impression on the ground similar to what they saw near the explosion that killed Chinli, was that the wooden contraption was faster than the two Guardians. They flew after it, but it was lost to sight within a minute, and no matter where they flew, they couldn’t see it anywhere. Unfortunately, it had been near the end of the day at that point, and with the sun setting soon afterwards, they decided to head back to the Enclave for the night, where they had been staying after their searches during the day. It was much more difficult to search for what they were looking for in the darkness, and they hoped to pick up the trail the next day.

Which was what they were doing now. They were a bit to the south of where they had lost the flying wood box the day before, believing that it had perhaps turned south when they expected it to keep fleeing east. They had their eyes focused on the ground and in the sky, hoping to see more of those flying contraptions so that they could get some answers – because Vilnesh wasn’t telling them anything. Both of them suspected that the powerful Guardian knew more than he was letting on, but they also professed not to have any other information than what they already knew, and that was even with Syrlia asking point-blank the night before, when they got back, if Vilnesh knew something that could help their investigation.

“Stop. Do you feel that?”

Farmas stopped his forward momentum and circled back to where his companion was hovering in the middle of the air. He looked around, trying to see what she could be talking about, but the land and air around them was virtually empty of anything but grass, a few rocky mounds, and clouds in the sky. When he closed his eyes and concentrated on what he could feel around using his Magical Detection Skill, the only thing he could sense were the few Apertures that were a few miles away in different directions.

“I don’t feel anything. What is it?” he asked, knowing that her own ability to detect magical residue was slightly better than his own. His focus had always been a bit more physical than the magical side of Guardianship, meaning that his magical Skills were a little bit lower than hers, but it wasn’t like he was lacking in anything. He would beat her in a straight-up fight, after all, especially if he was able to hit her with his Onyx Bone Warhammer, forged from the bones of an Onyx Dragon he’d killed centuries ago, as there wasn’t much that could stop it from getting through to hit what he was aiming at.

She shook her head, the dark green ringlets framing her face bouncing everywhere. “I’m… not sure. I could’ve sworn I felt something familiar, but now I don’t sense anything. Let’s go back a little to see if I can pick it up again.”

He shrugged, relying on her heightened senses in this case. It wasn’t like they had any other leads to go on, so they might as well look into whatever she felt, even if it didn’t turn up anything. The day was still relatively young, so if they didn’t find what she was looking for, it wouldn’t be much of a loss.

He followed her as she floated slowly back along where they had just flown, her eyes closed and her senses flared to their utmost. He kept his own eyes open but also extended his Skill to the limit, but again he didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary.

It took about five minutes of searching before she finally stopped, turning in the air toward the southwest, lifting her arm to point off into the distance. “I think what I felt was there, but I can’t be sure.”

“What is it? Another one of those wooden boxes?”

She shook her head again. “No, at least I don’t think so. It’s more akin to what we briefly felt back at the site of the explosion. Like an extremely weak Guardian, but different.”

“That’s the best lead we’ve had so far, so let’s go!” he said, shooting through the air in the direction she had pointed. She joined him a half-second later, and he let her take the lead because she seemed to know where she was going. After approximately a mile, his senses finally picked out what hers had already.

Syrlia was right; it was the same quasi-Guardian signature they’d felt before, but it was so faint that he barely picked it up. He couldn’t believe that she had noticed it at such a distance.

When they arrived at where the fading traces of it were the strongest, he immediately spotted a familiar circular indentation on the grass beneath them, along the edge of an Aperture’s territory. Looking around, in the far distance, he spotted something in the sky, and he immediately knew it was another of the wooden flying things they had been looking for. He pointed it out to his companion, but she had already seen it; both took off after it, pushing their spells to their limit, but it quickly disappeared from sight, even faster than the one the day before.

Farmas began to slow down, realizing that they had lost it, but Syrlia kept going. When he caught up to her, she shouted through the rushing air around them, “I can still track it! Follow me!”

He wasn’t going to argue, because he felt the thrill of the hunt flow through him, and he smiled even as he brought his warhammer off his shoulder and held it at the ready in front of him. While he’d lost the scent, he could rely on Syrlia to track it to the end of the world – as long as the scent didn’t fade too much.

It’s time to find some answers… and hopefully beat in some heads while we’re at it.