January 17, 2019, 4:12 pm.

Wyonna is gone.

Reading my log, she was cut off the moment the anti-corruption system activated. Does that mean Wyonna is corrupted?

Is this because she broke out of her shackles? Or is it something else?

And seriously, system? You couldn't give us five minutes to enjoy our victory.

I'm broken out of my thoughts by Rufka squeezing my hand tightly, her concern making me feel guilty. We just had to put down- no, not put down. We had to kill her old love while I'm worrying about Wyonna being missing. It can wait.

"I'm okay. It's just…" I trail off for a second before continuing, "Wyonna is gone. And this new quest is... How are you?"

"Hmm. Yes. I've never heard of a quest that grants Citizen status before,” Rufka answers, ignoring my question but giving my hand a quick squeeze.

I don't know how to respond. I barely registered that there was a difference between Citizens and Users before. It's obvious in hindsight.

"I don't know what yours says, but we're already Citizens," I tell Rufka, gesturing to indicate the others. I could keep it to myself but that feels… wrong.

"Figured," she grunts, draping her arm over my shoulder.

"But what does it even mean?" I wonder, noticing Josh walking towards us with Smoulder in hand.

"It means better than user. Obviously," Rufka states as Smoulder launches herself several metres, knocking me back before I indulge her in post-battle head-scritches.

"What means better than user?" Josh questions Rufka, shuffling his feet while looking at the still molten metal where Dhanni was moments ago.

"Being a Citizen is better than being a user," Rufka explains, staring at the 'silver bullet'.

"Better how?" I try to prod Rufka.

"I don't know. Never heard of Citizen before," she replies teasingly.

When I glance at Josh, looking for support, he flinches away from me. Confused, I touch my face trying to see if there's something on it, but it feels clean and smooth as I ask, "what's wrong Josh?"

"No-nothing," he stammers, turning away from me.

What the hell?

Hoping Rufka can help out, I nudge her, gesturing to my face, "is there something on my face?"

Rufka inspects me closely, scrutinizing my face while taking it in hand. She turns it this way and that, humming and hawing.

"Hmm. Interesting. Very interesting,” Rufka observes, tapping a finger against her cheek.

"What?" I demand after half a minute of waiting, "what is it?"

"Nothing. You're just as pretty as ever. Don't know what he saw. Maybe it's a Citizen thing," Rufka postulates, patting my cheek while I blush.

"I told you. It's nothing," Josh exclaims, exasperated.

"It is better to check. The quest says we must worry about corruption," Rufka states as the others join us.

"Interesting. You received the quest too?" Beth questions Rufka, slinging her rifle onto her back. Beth bumps Josh with her elbow once she gets closer, who gives her a sheepish grin in response, when she adds, "good job there, slugger."

Nodding, Rufka turns her gaze on each of us in turn, "if we are to complete this quest, then it would seem we need to rescue my mother. She never told me the name of her apprentice, but I know that she was a summoner."

"It's possible Ivicka knows something too," Tipan hesitantly adds, "I never had a chance to read most of her letters. But minister Folthka might know."

Considering their words, Beth cracks her knuckles before speaking, "Either way, it appears the Fallen have scattered now that their leaders are gone. Hopefully, they'll go back to their normal training area behaviour. We don't have to set a course of action yet; this new quest can wait until we're back at Raz's."

"Now, we could continue with our training, but I'd like to investigate their excavation, gather essence then maybe pick up some of these general abilities. I can't believe there was a party chat, and no one mentioned it," Beth sighs, shaking her head.

"I imagine that we'll want Alexis to loot them soon. To dispose of their bodies," Roberts suggests, waving at the scores of bodies on the edge of the roof.

"Yeah, I can do that," I agree, walking to the edge of the building, looking over the edge. It's only as I'm looking down that I realize just how many Fallen fell by my hands alone. I know it should disturb me but instead, I feel a sense of grim satisfaction.

Then I reach out to loot everything. But there's no prompt in my interface.

That's what I was afraid of. Wyonna wasn't just giving me advice. She's been providing me assistance through the interface. And now she's gone because of this stupid quest.

Well, Citizen Pandora, I guess you're going to have to figure it out for yourself.

So, instead of dwelling, I focus on my memory of the last time I used the ability to loot a large area.

By spending a small amount of facet I'm able to remember the moment perfectly.

"Even when you're gone, you're still helping me. Thank you, Wyonna," I murmur, thankful I have the memory to copy.

There's an initial pulse that identifies every one of the bodies within range which I replicate using minimal facet. The range is surprisingly wide. It seems facet isn't disrupted by ambient mana the way elemental mana is.

Once I use it, the pulse provides me with feedback indicating there are 179 defeated Fallen within a hundred meters or so. The feedback doesn't include a sense of direction, but I'm already thinking of ways I might be able to turn this into a detection ability. Even a basic, 'are there monsters nearby?' pulse could be useful.

The next step of the looting process bears a resemblance to my IFF ability, though it uses weaker connections. Similar to the first pulse, I send another, but with dozens of filaments of facet lightly tethered to it. I use these to create a connection to every target the first pulse identified. It doesn't cost any focus and only a marginal amount of facet to establish connections with each corpse within range.

The next step will be to focus on the bodies, pulling at the essence stored within. But I don't intend to draw the essence out until I ensure I've discerned the step that comes after.

Starting with a single body, I attempt the part I'm certain will be the most challenging.

Teleportation.

The essence pulls on the tether, but I have to be careful at this step. Not just to get it to work, but I suspect this is the key to learning how to teleport without using a complicated set of runes.

Testing on a single body, I watch carefully as the essence uses the tether to travel to my hand. As the essence leaves, the body disappears in a puff of blue smoke.

As the process continues, I follow it closely. As I watch the essence travel through the bond, it's converted to pure energy, being disassembled before being sent along the bond.

It's not teleporting. At least not how I'm familiar with teleportation so far. It is reminiscent of how teleportation works in Star Trek, but I'd rather not try to disassemble and reassemble myself. Which means, I won't be able to copy the method. I'm not able to glean anything else of use either.

Once it reaches me, the essence floats about for a second before it turns into more of the blue mist. Guess the last step needs to be set up ahead of time.

The last step is simple. All I need to do is create a connection between the interface 'looting' function and the links. Which I do, now that I know the essence disappears otherwise.

Instead of immediately looting all of the bodies, I observe several more transfers, searching for any clue that might allow me to teleport. I've gone through twenty individual bodies when I hear Rufka clear her throat from beside me.

"You want to talk about it?" Rufka offers.

I think she's talking about my experiments until my mouth opens, surprising myself, "I kind of took her for granted. Wyonna that is."

"Oh?" Rufka leans against the recently Fallen-cleared parapet as she encourages me to continue. Behind us, I can hear Beth laughing with Josh before talking with Tipan and Roberts about taking the time to ensure we're not being surrounded while we investigate the Fallen camp.

"Yeah. She's been with me ever since we woke here on Akilo, though I didn't know it at first. It seems like she's been making things easier, giving me shortcuts," I share, deciding I've played enough, finally looting the rest of the bodies. The wave of blue dust that rises obscures the remaining bodies for a moment before it starts disappearing to wherever blue dust goes. Probably not the Kool-Aid factory.

"Doesn't seem as though you're crippled," Rufka comments, gesturing to the wisps of dust that haven't quite faded.

"Yeah, I'm figuring things out. But I owe her a lot. We need to finish this quest. I want her back," I decide, clenching my fist, making Smoulder look up at me.

"Hey, I'll be there Lexi," Rufka reassures me, squeezing my shoulder.

"Thanks," I reply, giving her a sad smile.

"Any time. Besides, with Tipan at our side, I think we might have a chance of being able to break my mum out," Rufka replies excitedly.

"That would be cool," my smile is happier this time.

"If we're going that route, we may want to head east first though," Rufka adds, tapping out a familiar rhythm on the parapet as she talks.

"Why? What's east of here?" I wonder, thinking back to the standing stones. Seems like the wrong direction. It sounds like Rufka's mother and Ivicka's mentor are both somewhere in the Aetherium to the west.

"You mean other than my home and everything I've ever known?" Rufka teases, "my friend Theria. If we're going into Aetherium territory we can't have all of you running around looking like short, discoloured Builders. We'll need proper disguises and illusions."

"And Theria can help with that, I take it," I guess while wondering how illusions work. Would that be an application of twilight? It would make sense.

"Yeah. But that's for later. I don't think we'll be leaving for a few days. You may have destroyed all these," Rufka gestures to the unlooted bodies across the far side of the camp, "but against powerful opponents, our only effective tactic is to send you into melee range so you can drop a Cataclysm worth of elemental destruction on their head."

"While you were dealing with half the army and two of the awakened Fallen, the rest of us were being overrun by Dhanni and a few squads. That's not to mention that if we're not skipping off to another training area, we'll need to deal with this Ivicka."

"Your friend Beth isn't the only one who feels training is required," Rufka declares vehemently.

"Uhm," I pause, not sure how to respond. It feels like Rufka literally saved my life with her skills a couple hours earlier today.

"But it's okay. Because with you teaching me, maybe I'll be able to pass as a mancer yet," Rufka adds, her ears perking up excitedly.

"I think you're already awesome. But I'll teach you everything I can," I confirm, "though I don't think I'm a very good teacher."

"Ha. You're trying to teach several people how to handle the primal elements of the universe. Did you think you could really teach it in an hour?" Rufka lightly reprimands me.

"Yeah, I guess it was kind of silly. But it was so easy for me I just thought…"

"Skill is a result of hard work. Least that's what my mum always said when others were around. When it was just the two of us, she mentioned that the system did allow for shortcuts. Such as Astra's Stride."

"Well, obviously that's where all your skills came from," I tease as Rufka affects an offended air.

"Oh no. She's as dangerous with her words as her spells," Rufka proclaims loudly, pretending to slough to the ground.

"Har. Har. Now, I should probably get back to looting the rest of these," I decide, smiling at Rufka's sprawled form. She really does have well-defined muscles, I note.

"That's right. Just leave me here after mortally wounding me," Rufka exclaims, peeking up at me with one eye, which she quickly closes when she sees I noticed.

"Okay. Since you told me to," I answer, lifting into the air on my hoverboard while transferring Smoulder into her special pocket.

"Heartless. So, heartless. If only-" her monologue is lost to me as I float over to the far side of the camp. Thanks to Rufka I'm feeling much better. Once I'm roughly over the middle of the remaining bodies, I send out another set of pulses, looting the rest of the Fallen.

There were only 83 here, which combined with the 179 Fallen I looted earlier totals 262. When I check, I discover we received 705 mge essence each, mostly wind and lightning but with a smattering of every other element. There are even two twilight essence. With so much data I can confirm that, on average, Fallen drop more than two essence each.

We also receive 26 mortal grade mana essence, which translates to two integration points each, plus change. This implies about one in ten Fallen drops a mana essence. Altogether, it's a good haul, for a few minutes’ efforts.

While counting our gains I float around their camp searching for anything that stands out. Then I realize I never picked up Bel'dast's crystal. Flying to where she fell, it takes me a minute of searching to find it. It's more than half obscured by the loose dirt it fell in, but I pluck it out with a twist of earth and wind, guiding it to my hand, inspecting it to ensure it's the right crystal. Not that it's likely to be anything else.

"Object analyzed - Fallen Soulstone - Beldast. This crystal has the soul of the Fallen Beldast bound within. This soulstone requires a special facility to be cleansed.“

Sigh. It's not the same without Wyonna's extra comments after an analysis.

Putting the crystal away, I fly back to where the others are assembled on the building above. When I reach the top, I notice Tipan isn't around. When I land next to Josh, he steps away. I'm not sure but it seems like he's hiding behind Roberts. But then I see him worrying with the straps of his glider.

You're just being silly Alexis, chill.

"Ah. Welcome back, Alexis. That was quite the bounty you gathered; wouldn't you say?" Roberts comments amiably as he starts strapping his glider on.

"Yeah. It was pretty good. Where's Tipan?" I respond, noting that Beth and Rufka are fussing over Beth's glider.

"She's doing a sweep for Fallen before we head down," Roberts points, making it easier for me to pick out her form where she's flying above.

As I watch, she channels several air blades through her shaft before disappearing from sight. A moment later I receive a notification telling me I've received another 5 mge essence, then Tipan rises back into the air, continuing her patrol. It's weird receiving loot from somebody else's actions, but it's a good weird. I keep watching as Tipan finishes her patrol, landing with grace.

"Good. Okay people, now that Tipan's back, let's go see what these Fallen were so interested in," Beth commands, leading the way with her own glider, the others right behind her.

Because I'm feeling fancy, I try to leap over the parapet before casting my fight spell. But I just smack my knee on the low wall, falling backwards. It doesn't hurt, but I'm glad no one saw that.

"Smooth moves Lexi. Guess you need training too," Rufka mocks from above. Damnit. Can't a girl embarrass herself in private?

"Yeah, yeah," I reply, letting my magic carry me up and over.

Even with their lead I still make it to the ground before the others. This spell really is better than their gliders. It's a shame I don't have that mass flight ability. It would have made getting down instant.

Damn, I might need to pick it up, the tactical uses could be amazing. Maybe I can figure out a similar spell instead?

We spend the next few minutes searching the small awakened camp next to the tunnel. It's surprisingly reminiscent of a campsite we might find back on earth. Or at least that's what Josh mentions to Beth.

We split into pairs to search the camp, each of us choosing a tent to investigate. Tipan, Smoulder and I browse through our empty tent, finding bedding, spare bandoleers and several low-quality knives but nothing of real interest. Well, Smoulder mostly just hops around sniffing things while being adorable. But she's part of the team. As I prepare to leave, Tipan stops me, "we should collect everything."

"Really, why?" I ask, trying to figure out what the value of the scattered items might be worth if we sold them. I can't imagine it's much.

"You never know what you might miss," Tipan informs me, opening a pouch on one of the bandoleers, several essence crystals spilling out.

"Huh. Fair point," I respond. I've been spoiled by my looting ability.

With more care we go through everything again, packing it away neatly. Because you can carry more if things are properly compressed apparently. I totally cheat, using metal magic to create banding. At which point Tipan brings several objects out of her storage for me to help her repack.

"I really need to develop my metal manipulation skills. I didn't think of the simple utility it could grant. We don't use metal magic much in the Aetherium."

"Why not," I inquire politely while carefully packing a set of ceremonial robes that Tipan mentioned she mostly keeps for sentimental value.

"Because it's so mana intensive to use metal. And it's heavy. There are a few smiths who work it for their crafting, but most of our possessions are made out of hide and bone since they’re already imbued with essence," Tipan explains, gesturing at her staff, which is polished ivory.

As we rejoin the others, we confirm that no one found any information though Rufka and Beth discovered a couple enchanted tools for cooking tucked away. Roberts gets very excited about them when Rufka describes their purpose.

"A self-heating portable pan with instant temperature control? This is amazing," Roberts exclaims while inspecting the large pan, "I need to check if Raz has any spices. No offence to his cooking, but I'm certain we're not always going to have such fine fare available."

"I'll chip in," I offer, thinking back to my diet of dried wolfadillo and berries. Rather not do that again.

The other kitchen implement is a small knife that doesn't lose its edge.

"It's not really a weapon," Rufka explains, "it's so any-user can work with infused materials easily. Mostly it's used for food prep."

"That would be a wonderful tool. May I hold on to it?" Roberts asks. Rufka shrugs, handing it over.

With the camp searched, there's only one thing remaining.

Cautiously, we approach the tunnel, Smoulder leading the charge, hopping her way ahead of Josh.

What will we discover inside? Treasure? An escape route? Some strange form of burial chamber?

Maybe we'll find a hint to the identity of the summoner?

Whatever lies below, it's time to find out.