The Rose’s Thorn broke past the Chaos waves and stopped just close enough to the barrier for Virgil and the others to get a good look at it. The expanse in front of them was solid, almost too solid. A typical plane’s barrier was still somewhat porous, allowing some of the Chaos into the plane, a tiny tiny fraction, just the amount needed to keep life going.

But from what Virgil could observe, not even that fraction could enter through the barrier in front of them, which was why the backwash was so strong. Still, the Ocean skiffer headed alongside the barrier without prompting them for directions. They eventually reached a space that had calmer waves and it wasn’t long until they found a…breach?

It was a slight gap in the larger scheme of things, barely wide enough for the skiffer to enter. Even this close, the barrier was completely opaque.

“What in Chaos are we entering?” Amiri mumbled, her voice quivered in suppressed emotion. Was it a hint of fear from a woman who barely had any?

“Well, that’s what we’re here to find out,” Sarra answered. They were all inside the bridge now, with no one in the mood to study the Chaos seed.

The Rose’s Thorn made it to the breach and dove point first into it. The skiffer shuddered and rocked, throwing Craig and Sarra, the only two members not seated and strapped in, against the bulkhead. Craig dove at Sarra, catching her before she could hit her head. The intervening weeks had allowed her leg to heal, but it was still weak, requiring months of training to return to its original strength.

Bang!

The front of the Rose’s Thorn, the narrow arrowhead, smashed into something hard. It crunched through it, draining a dangerous amount of Animus from the three pilots and from its reserve before it shuddered to a stop.

Upon getting his bearings, Virgil looked out the viewports but only saw darkness outside.

“Is anyone hurt?” he groaned, rubbing his shoulders where the harness dug into it.

“I’m fine,” Sarra said.

“I’m not,” Craig moaned, pushing off the floor as he dusted off the seat of his pants.

Bzzt!

A small figurine made of light appeared in front of them. It wasn’t the Whisperer but a waifish girl with hair that looked like leaves. Small horns stuck out at odd places on her head.

Thorns, Virgil thought.

“Arrived at destination. Please vacate. The Ocean skiffer will move to calmer streams. Send a signal once ready to depart.” The sweet-sounding voice was jarring with the Vessel Spirit’s monotone. An oval stone, black with green veins, popped out of the panel and Sarra took hold of it.

“Please vacate within three hours. Chaos levels insufficient to sustain the vessel in prolonged beachhead mode.”

“That’s our cue,” Virgil said. The five of them trudged into the bunk room and grabbed their backpacks and weapons. There wasn’t much to pack up, since there really wasn’t enough wardrobe space in the room. Sarra had the Chaos seed in hand, staring down on it with a frown.

“We need to secure this properly,” she muttered. “We cannot bring this in the plane unprotected.”

With the difference in ambient Chaos between the plane and the Chaos Sea, the seed would be affected by the negative pressure. The plane would rip its energies out of its form and how quickly it did so depended on how great that difference was.

Virgil tossed a small wooden box at Sarra. He carved it in his free time. He formed it from outside the last time they stopped to harvest food.

Sarra held out a finger, channelling her Animus into a small scalpel. Virgil opened the box and let her place the seed inside. Once closed, she etched a string of runescript around the box, once, twice, and more until the entire box, a couple of inches to a side, was filled with her carving. Once she connected the terminus points, the runescript started glowing.

Satisfied, she placed it into her backpack and they made their way to the airlock. Once they reached it and stepped into the chamber, Virgil shivered. It was cold.

No, it was absolutely freezing!

“Achoo!” Amiri sneezed, a plume of fire shot out from her nose and cast the chamber in with a crimson glow. It warmed up the air considerably, despite the short burst. With a wordless nod, all four of them squeezed up beside the feisty woman whose skin had started glowing.

“Ahh, now that’s the ticket,” Craig moaned.

“Swarm fodder! I’m not a personal brazier!” Amiri growled. “Achoo! Chaos cursed cold!”

Once Virgil was suitably warmed up, he stepped away from Amiri and touched the outside door. The handle was so cold it almost froze his hand on touch. He channelled some of his Animus into his extremities, telling it to warm him up. The basic exercise should keep him from getting frostbite, though depending on the ambient Chaos in the plane, it remained to be seen if he could keep it up independently. Only someone like Amiri who had a Heritage based on fire, heat, and plasma could maintain a warm Field indefinitely.

The skin of his fingers hissed when he touched the handle just long enough to send a pulse of Animus through, which allowed the door to slide open. Into a wall. Of ice.

Amiri walked up to it, the light of her Animus showed crystalline bluish ice. She flipped her palm to face up and a moment later, a crimson lotus bud materialized above it. Its petals rustled as though stirred by the wind and it blossomed.

The freezing cold receded from the airlock, though it was by no means completely warm. The ice in front of them melted though into gas rather than water. Amiri coughed and stepped back, the gaseous substance burning her throat.

“We’ll need to create a vent,” Balliol muttered. “How far are we from the surface anyway?”

“Let me see what I can discover,” Sarra offered. “Amiri, stay close, please.”

The two women squeezed by the door, Amiri slightly behind Sarra. The Inquisitor closed her eyes and summoned her Animus, causing her green eyes to glow yellow. Tendrils of Animus rose from her fingertips and seeped into the ice wall. Virgil could follow her progress as a yellow line shone through the ice. It crept up, slowly, about an inch every few seconds until it was out of sight.

A few minutes later, the yellow line retracted downwards and back into her fingertips. “A couple of paces above the ceiling,” Sarra said decisively. “Balliol, think you can drill a hole?”

“Yeah,” the man grunted.

A shimmer in the air turned into a small blue wedge. The shape changed a couple of moments later, into a drill. It started spinning rapidly until the air around it hummed. A sharp whine made Virgil wince when it touched the ice and fragments flew towards them but Balliol hastily put up a shield to protect them from the debris.

It took half an hour before they managed to drill a hole an inch wide that reached up to the surface. Then Amiri created her crimson fire-lotus and heated the ice into a caustic steam. This time, Balliol’s hardened air shield and Sarra’s Field pushed it up the vent. With a few minutes to spare from their deadline, they emerged onto the surface of a frozen land.

They were but a few dozen paces from the planar barrier, and it looked as impermeable inside as it did from out in the Chaos. A rumble came from the tunnel they created and Virgil could see the Ocean skiffer withdraw. The hard and thick glacier didn’t collapse, so they had a way out of the plane, if need be. From now on, they had roughly four or five weeks from the third Full Moon of the Season of Fire.

“Huh, we gained a few days this time,” he muttered when he made some mental calculations. Sarra wordlessly nodded.

Virgil focused Animus in his eyes to get his bearings. From as far as he could see, there was only flat glacial ice. They just needed to head away from the barrier to get to the inner plane, and hopefully a landmass, otherwise they would be in for a hard, and hungry, time.

Craig’s Animus flared out from his eyes and hands. He pressed his palm down into the surface, and a circle of blue light appeared. When he pulled back, his hands trembled. He rubbed his palms together to heat them up. He looked at Virgil then at Sarra.

“I’ve marked it. We can proceed with confidence.”

They headed directly away from the barrier, carrying with them all of their supplies, weapons, and assorted camping gear. The cold seeped right through the soles of Virgil’s boots and while forceweave was excellent in repelling heat, it was equally good against the other extreme. His Animus reserves trickled out ever so slowly. The ambient Chaos here was thin, lower than Rumiga’s by a wide margin. No wonder nothing lived here.

The skies were covered by the Chaos streams with the presence of the Radiant Sun too far away. The celestial body was but a small disc barely wider than Virgil’s palm even as it shone overhead. The little warmth it shed barely kept the air moving.

The five of them moved at an even pace, devouring the longstrides as the hours passed. The Radiant Sun was setting in front of them, shining through the light mist. It was only then that Virgil saw something that wasn’t a frozen wasteland.

“Land!” he shouted.

The ice underneath them crackled, and Virgil skidded to a halt. Previously, the only sound they heard was the thudding of their boots, but now crackling?

“Watch out!” he yelled again as he jumped back, activating Boost in the process.

He landed nearly thirty paces away, Plasma Caster already in hand. The other four scrambled away from the crackling ice. The surface buckled and rose, and in the next moment…

“SHAAAA!”

A huge head burst out from under the surface, its jaws snapping shut, crushing the poisonous ice and swallowing it in the process. The creature’s jaws were at least five paces wide and it rose above the surface. Its thick leathery skin was the same colour as its eyes two of which were small and beady, sticking out of its face on stalks. The orbs twisted about independently from each other, four of them, each one tracking one of the others. Virgil had leapt far enough away that the creature didn’t take notice of him.

“What is it?” Balliol yelled.

“A native!” Sarra yelled, “it’s not a Wyldling!”

“Well, it wants us for dinner!” Craig yelled brandishing his Plasma Lancet.

“Maybe it’s edible?” Amiri licked her lips. “Anything would taste better than dry rations!”

“Ugh, how could you?” Balliol blanched.

Virgil sighted down the barrel, finger on the trigger and Animus flooding into the jade studs. The next moment, he fired. His bolt of superheated plasma took out one of the eyestalks, making the worm-like thing screech in pain. Its head swivelled over in Virgil’s direction and it gnashed its needle-like front teeth. Virgil could see the rest of its mouth filled with crunching teeth before a spark ignited in its mouth and the next moment, a thick stream of orange fire blasted out in his direction.

It splashed against the ice, vaporizing it and covering him in a caustic cloud. He barely kept it away with his Field, but even so, he could see it corroding his Animus.

“Don’t look away!” Balliol yelled as he sent wind knives flying into the creature’s mouth.

They stabbed against the creature’s inner parts making hot orange blood spurt out. The droplets hissed when they made contact with the surface, sending up more noxious puffs. Amiri’s crimson lotus bloomed against the hide, melting flesh and burning what blood escaped. Sarra and Craig sent potshots of lancet bolts into the wound, digging deeper into its flesh. Virgil shot out another eyestalk, which left it two.

Apparently, they were too tough a bone to chew and in the blink of an eye, the worm pulled back where it came from and the surface ice collapsed over the tunnel.

“Anyone hurt?” Virgil grunted from the cold spiking into his lungs and fatigue.

“All good,” the other four called out.

Virgil hurried up to them and without a word, they continued on their way. Dusk was only a few minutes away but they all knew that to stay on the wasteland was to invite death to dinner.

An hour after dark, they finally arrived on the shore. They scrambled up the slope and when they reached level ground, all they could see were wild tundra where only a few tufts of hardy grass grew. Off in the distance, shrouded by both darkness and mists, was what seemed like a lone mountain.

“That’s a good place to start looking,” Sarra declared. “But for now, I think we need to rest.”

“Agreed,” Virgil nodded.

They set up camp close to the shore but far enough away that anything coming from the frozen waste would be easily seen. Virgil took the first watch, a bit too keyed up to sleep. They watched the Radiant Sun set into the mists, behind the mountains.

And so ended their first day in the wild Davar plane. At least that was the name Virgil intended to submit to the Imperial Registry when they returned to civilisation.