Raymund Ballast stood at the edge of the Vulpis Squad camp with folded arms. There were no walls, but a few wooden stakes denoted the limits of their area. He listened to an argument slowly developing at the edge of the space, between one of their now necessary posted guard and one of the more insistent of the loiterers squatting on the Rally Station.

“Are you trying to tell me he’s still not here?” The squat humanoid demanded. Compared to the rest of the rabble that had begun to trickle around the edges of the camp, his well-fitted grey suit made him look relatively respectful. “It’s been a full day! And we aren’t at fucking war.”

The Vulpis Squad member kept her face even. “No, he is not. You will need to continue to wait.”

“I bet he’s out fucking another planet. Do you know plundering Aether is illegal? The people of the Nexus have the right to know how he manages to develop so many images and maintain them. His repeated displays of high Stats have the people’s attention.” The humanoid put his hands on his hips. A group of about ten other loiterers watched the interaction with sharp eyes. “There are laws. And what he has managed to accomplish is impossible without some shady dealings.”

The guard wasn’t swayed by this plea, the third of its type in the last twelve hours. “I’ll be sure to report about your request for an interview when he returns. In the meantime, please remain away from the camp. The Squad is undergoing intensive training right now. Image reverberations can be quite unpredictable.”

The humanoid sneered and took several steps forward, right up to the line of the camp’s edge. His flat nose was only inches away from the guard’s face. “Eh? And what if I want to take that risk?”

The woman didn’t even blink. “Your choices are your own. Feel free.”

Raymund was just glad that Vant wasn’t on supervision duty. He would have thundered down and broken the man’s jaw for disrespecting a member of the squad. Which, as far as Raymund could tell, was exactly the sort of reaction that these people wanted. Simply surrounding them with the disenfranchised and nosy seemed so petty otherwise.

Not that this man would be a good choice. He had strong connections with one of the few legitimate news entities in the Nexus.

A figure approached him and stood alongside him. He glanced sideways. Alana Donal nodded toward the group. “Is there really nothing to be done about them?”

“The Ghosthound said to ignore them so long as they don’t try to interfere with our business. Annoyances like this make us mentally tougher.” Raymund said in a low voice. But then he released a long sigh, not bothering to conceal the strain. “Obviously, someone within Military High Command is spreading rumors of misconduct by Randidly. Another patrol would have picked them up and swept such wanderers away otherwise. But until we know who is responsible, it is better to ignore them.”

“If the opponent doesn’t get a response they want, they will escalate,” Alana said softly. “Not just with these lost people and the dirty journalists. But with a genuine probe on our location.”

Raymund flashed his long canines. His pupils dilated. “At which point they will realize what a mistake it is to antagonize the Vulpis Squad.”

For a while, Alana considered that. She was still sweaty, coming directly from her physical training session to come speak with him. That sort of dedication had been a constant presence in her exercises. Of all their new additions from the Alpha Cosmos, Alana adopted the fastest to the higher demands. Soon, they would need to switch her off the same training program as the others, so her advance wasn’t stifled.

Hell, if Raymund was being honest, her growth was even more impressive than Charlotte’s right now. There were only two individuals with drive like hers that he had ever met. One, obviously, was the Ghosthound.

The other was Techetadore.

“It’s true, though.” Alana’s image spread around them as she spoke, masking the statement. Orange tongues of flame danced around them in a circle. “The Ghosthound’s energy doesn’t come the usual way.”

For a second Raymund was stunned by the dangerous admission; if anything, the truth about Randidly’s Aether Crossroads would bring more antagonism down upon their heads than him murdering millions of people for their Aether. That was just the way of the Nexus. But a split second later, he calmed himself down.

This was a deliberate lure. A powerful watcher would be able to pierce through Alana’s still unrefined image, but hearing the words, the information they gleaned from it wouldn’t be close to the actual truth.

“Ahem,” Raymund manifested his much stronger image. A nine-tailed fox wrapped its tails protectively around the two of them, creating a much more overwhelming seal for their conversations. On top of that Raymund added a layer of inverted Engraving that reflected back most Skills and emotions. It was a unique trick Randidly used for the training spheres, but it would likely serve as an effective speedbump to any watcher. “You are quite sharp.”

“The truth is,” Alana Donal grinned forward at the waiting journalists and desperate clinging to the edges of the camp. The movement of images had drawn all the eyes, even the squat humanoid journalist. “I’m looking for a promotion. Training is wonderful, but I’m beginning to get bored out of my mind.”

Pushing past that reflective Engraving would take long enough that any actual spy would assume they had missed something. They would see their lips moving and wonder what had been said. What secret they shared.

“In the future, watch your words,” Raymund’s tone sharpened and his brow furrowed; now he played his role. “As punishment, assist DiOrtho Vant during your break periods for two weeks. Charlotte needs a punching bag.”

Alana tried her best to look chastened, but the wicked light in her eyes gave her enthusiasm away. Raymund made a private note to intensify his own training, lest she take his job someday.

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*****

“The 25th floor will likely be hard,” Pullas said. The trio sat on a series of giant luminescent mushrooms in the 23rd ring. Each stretched up to the size of an apartment building with a soft and expansive umbrella on which to rest. Below, leaden slugs pulled themselves along the stem of the swaying mushroom, trying to investigate the visitors. They were taking a short break while Randidly experimented with the local flora to see if he could make a savory stew. “From what I could gather in my communications, a wicked cabal owns that location. Ah, wicked in that they barely acknowledge Idylla. I make no moral judgments on them as individuals-”

“So a fight.” Xershi grinned and punched his fists together in front of his chest.

Randidly had to roll his eyes. Xershi had been like that since he had watched him tussle with the obsidian Octopi. Since then, their progress upward through the Sonara had been incredibly smooth. Either because they received word about their exploits or because the owners of the rings didn’t care, they passed through unmolested. Some of the tension Randidly held began to ease at such rapid progress.

Enough that he offered to cook another meal.

“Beyond that, I know very little. The rings above 25 never responded to us at all. They report directly to Duulys Ambar. As such, they don’t bother with the goings-on of the lower floors.” Pullas finished. Randidly had to hide a smile. It had taken her about ten minutes for her to methodically answer his question about what she knew about the layers of the Sonara.

“Who’s Duulys Ambar?” Xershi asked.

“Wow, you really- well, you do have an uneducated tilt to her gait in life. Ahem, Duulys Ambar is essentially the most powerful figure inside the Sonara. He controls the fortieth ring, the largest of the empty worlds. The reason that some of Elhume’s puppets don’t wander lower is that he turns them away.” Pullas said. “Well, that actually brings up another point. How high do you plan on climbing, Mr. Ghosthound?”

Randidly considered lying, but couldn’t really see the point. “High. Past the rings controlled by Elhume. There's… something I need to find in the upper areas.”

“Oh.” Pullas squeaked. “Well, that’s certainly one way to seek your own death. Have you considered… what it would mean to attract Elhume’s attention”

Randidly shrugged and cut more mushrooms. A dangerous prospect yes, but one that didn’t scare him as much as it used to. Besides, he didn’t have much choice. The Patron of Feathers was his one solid lead on the tangled secrets surrounding Elhume and the sudden shift that happened at the end of the Second Cohort.

Plus, in the aftermath of fighting the Octopi, he felt good in a way that was difficult to describe. It wasn’t quite that he had unleashed all of his images and Nether to suppress a powerful figure in the Nexus. It also wasn’t those few movements that had utilized all his Nether Weight, his physical powers, and his image physicalizations to rip through space with his movements. A fire he had been missing for a long time had once more been lit in his heart.

It was a small thing, but after the fight had settled down, Xershi had hesitated for a bit and then said. “Do we have some spare time? I’d really like to try sparing with you.”

Randidly had declined immediately, but that had been enough. And his relationship with Xershi was entirely different than what he had shared with Helen. Hell, this guy would be a dangerous foe. The metal liger’s emotional affect had sung in a way that made Randidly suspect he would be more difficult than the fat octopi.

But the exchange had been oddly nostalgic. Where he wasn’t fighting alone through every threat. When everyone he interacted with wasn’t just a subordinate or an enemy.

“So, are you willing to brave your precious death to come with us?” In the present, Xershi looked intently at Pullas.

“You are going too?” Pullas blinked.

Xershi had the nerve to smirk. “Not to brag, but when it comes to moving sneakily, I’m pretty confident in my abilities. I certainly won’t have any problem moving through those layers.”

Randidly snapped his teeth shut on the denial he had been preparing, remembering how they met. Shrugging, he turned back to the stew.

“Hum.” Pullas really seemed to pause and consider this option. Her forehead scrunched up as she considered her options. Then she seemed to deflate. “Well, I do not need to commit to a single hypothetical answer now. I’m just… living in the moment, you know? Let’s make it there and I will decide whether to follow or not.”

Randidly took a tentative spoon of his soup, a small smile playing across his lips. The trio would continue on for a few more days. As soon as the spoon hit his tongue, he grimaced. “Sorry, this stuff still tastes sour. Let’s just move on; maybe we can find something more fresh in the next ring.”

Ignoring Xershi’s long sigh, Randidly began to move. They had set up near the edge of the space, after finding the exterior staircase. As he had feared, the size of the world contained in each layer had continued to grow. But it only took them a few minutes to reach the bottom and begin to ascend.

With the Stillborn Phoenix as a cloak, Randidly pushed his way up through the image static. His steps were firm and steady. For a while he had felt tempted to fall back and trade-off with Pullas to shield them in the climb, but he had begun to realize that a lot of the image echoes bouncing off him were distinct notes from the lower floors. The power they wielded channeled upward through the Sonara around him, humming through the edges.

Randidly had to thank the Octopi for that; he had picked the image that had grappled with two of his own out of the sea of other fragments. Once he noticed, he began to listen more intently. It was deeply uncomfortable work, but his mind now ran on Cognition of the Aberrant Alchemist and Unnatural Capacity. Under his scrutiny, the noises fell into place.

Randidly grimaced as a particularly ugly pulse of image hit him. Not that understanding the noise makes it any more pleasant to experience…

Briefly, he paused and glance to his left. Glowing azure fireflies the size of buses began to fly out from the base of the enormous translucent mushrooms. A few picked off the heavy slugs clinging to the long stocks, using their mandibles to rip open their bodies and sucked out their internal organs.

Randidly turned away. Okay, pretty glad we didn’t have to fight the individual who lives in this sort of place…

They passed through the golden portal and stumbled for a bit. The ground underneath Randidly’s feet was soft and warm, with rolling hills around them. The sky above was a soft red, dark as wine. There were trees, but they mostly resembled bushy pink cacti that undulated strangely. However, it was the noise that clued Randidly into the fact something was strange.

A breathy exhale tickled against his ear. Half-heard snatches of conversation rolled lazily around the space, moving between the bushy trees. He turned slowly, but in the area behind him were only Pullas and Xershi. Randidly found himself sweating slightly from the low heat that burned through this ring. His senses spread out but a powerful image blocked his examination. His face twisted into a scowl when his probes revealed nothing but soft laughter. “Pullas? What’s with this ring?”

“Ah, it’s kinda warm, isn’t it? But I haven’t heard much about this place.” Pullas shivered. Her face had almost immediately become flushed. “A few of the guys I worked with always volunteered to handle communications with the twenty-third floor, so-”

A disembodied voice giggled and then release a low moan of throaty pleasure.

“Ugh, a realm of fleshy pursuits,” Xershi scowled at a nearby pink cactus. “How indulgent and messy.”