“The swarmlings are reaching the shore,” Virgil noted quietly from his vantage point, a stone tower built on top of a hill some four longstrides away from the frozen sea.

“How long has it been?” Balliol grunted.

“A Season,” he replied grimly. “It took a season. The Wanderers and Hunters could almost make it up to here but the swarmlings were initially only able to come within a hundred paces of shore before they expired.”

“So what? It would take them decades before they reach the wall at this rate.”

“I don’t think it works that way,” Virgil muttered.

“Relax, Davar, Vagaris will get here before they progress that far.”

“I’m more worried about what the Whisperer would do if Vagaris does come here.”

“Legate Segawa is a Knight Dominus,” Balliol scoffed. “He’s more than a match for a Telurian Marchioness.”

“You think he’d come out here?”

“Oh, quit your worrywart ways, Davar. That’s practically a guarantee.”

Virgil couldn’t help but nod. Standard procedure for treks into the Chaos Sea meant at least a Dominus or a group of Knight Commanders should be included in the team for safety. Balliol was right but Virgil couldn’t help but feel as though they were dancing on the palm of that Chaos Lord’s hand.

Well, there was nothing to do here. They’d languished in this strange plane for nearly a year now and aside from the walls filled with forbidden knowledge, they had yet to crack any of the fortress’ secrets.

Secrets abounded. They’d mapped the entirety of the outer section quadrant they were in, but the inner ones were sealed. There were crystal panels next to doors and at first they thought the problem was a lack of power. When they added in Animus, it still didn’t work. Aside from the control room they first found, there were a total of three more, one in each cardinal direction. But none of them opened a passage to the inner hub.

A few weeks earlier, Sarra followed her instincts, or maybe the proddings of the Threads of Fate, and found herself in a strange room filled with grooves laid out in strange patterns and a door they couldn’t open. She’d been stuck in there since, trying to find out what was behind that door.

“You think those grooves had to be filled with Animus?” Balliol asked.

“Maybe, but…that would take all five of us to fill out that much, I think. Besides, that’s the first thing Sarra said was the most unlikely trigger.”

“So, what?” Balliol scoffed. “She needs to fill out a specific pattern on the grooves? What’s that, a passcode?”

“Yes, quite likely. Maybe it will lead to the inner sanctums.”

“There are millions of possible combinations there.”

“And she has the Threads to guide her.” Virgil shrugged. “Well, give a nudge every now and then.”

“Huh.” Balliol yawned. “When are we heading back?”

“In a minute. I just want to see how this Wave ends.”

The swarmlings kept coming out of the initial breach Virgil and the others made using the Ocean Skiffer. He’d taken a closer look when there was a gap in the invasion. He wasn’t sure what the Wyldlings hoped to accomplish. Their deaths did spread Chaos into the plane, but the amount it increased by was negligible. Perhaps if they continued to invade and die on the shores for the next hundred or so years, the ambient Chaos in the outskirts would rise enough for them to be able to stay in the plane for an extended period.

The thing was, the area inside the fortress had normal levels of ambient Chaos, which meant that it probably siphoned what was available around it. Whatever it was they were in, it was huge. There was also a very real divide between the eastern quadrant and the other quadrants. They couldn’t cross from the inside as the connecting passages were just as sealed as the inner sanctum.

He suggested that they try to circumnavigate the wall, but had been vetoed by Sarra who wanted to focus on controlling the interior.

Amiri, on the other hand, had finally managed to bond with the armour she took. She said it was named Tra’Menos though the armour spirit was barely coherent. She had to invest about thirty lumens worth of Animus to keep it bonded to her though which cut down the amount she could use by a quarter. Still, Tra’Menos allowed her to wade into battle with impunity. The ground hornets’ stingers and claws didn’t even leave a mark when they hit her.

She still felt the kinetic strike, but even that was greatly muffled.

“It shunts the force down to my feet and transfers it to what I’m standing on,” Amiri told him when Virgil asked. “About 75% of the blunt force is negated like that.” She shrugged, an impressive gesture considering the size of the pauldrons she had on.

It didn’t affect her Facet much though which to Virgil meant that it wasn’t really that useful an artefact. Still, Amiri quite liked her new toy and it wasn’t as if they had anything better to do. The Ennoia they had in the sealed box still couldn’t be used. The simple act of opening that thing within this plane would destroy it.

As for Virgil, the last Season of doing nothing but eat, sleep, and meditate had almost driven him mad. He’d already missed his daughter’s enrolment into the Academies and he missed his son’s birthday too. And if things didn’t change, not only will he miss Yuriko and Rami’s birthdays next Season but he’d also miss Sadeen’s visit.

Now there was an idea. If Sadeen didn’t see him in Faron’s Crossing, she was likely to lead a legion on a manhunt. Ancestors! He hoped she wouldn’t do it. She was too indebted to her clan already.

Well, he had the entire year ahead before he needed to worry about that. Sadeen usually came to Rumiga near the Celestial Refraction every other year. He wondered what the Clan would offer him this time. As long as Sadeen would have him, he wouldn’t break it off. Besides, his own House would castigate him if he did something so precipitous.

“I think they’re done,” Balliol said, bringing Virgil out of his reverie.

“Huh, so it seems.”

Virgil channelled Animus into his Facet and expanded his vision. There weren’t any Wyldlings moving. Motes of green drifted from their disintegrating corpses even as the fires of their Anima likely returned to the Chaos Sea. For the common Wyldling, it took years to reincorporate. Expeditions have been led to the Chaos Sea and into the Tidelands to find their nests, and wherever they did, the Legions did all in their power to eradicate it. But it was like fighting against the waves of the sea, or the blowing of the storm.

Destroy the Wyldlings’ Anima and the Sea birthed more of them. Do nothing and they eventually evolved to a more powerful caste. At the very least, Wyldlings only grew stronger the longer they held their current corpus.

Virgil and Balliol climbed down the tower and took the landcrafter back to the wall. It took a few hours since they were in no hurry, and when they returned to their quarters, it was already time for dinner.

Craig cooked up a stew of vegetables, fruit, and meat that Virgil didn’t bother to identify. They’d long since run out of the spices they normally brought with them, but they had discovered a salt storage in their wanderings. It was a huge room packed full of it, enough to season their stew for years.

“Where’s Sarra?” Virgil asked curiously as the four of them settled to eat.

“Still in the puzzle room.” Amiri rolled her eyes. “She’s been there since yesterday. I don’t think she ate anything at all.”

“Huh, I’ll bring her some food.”

“Don’t bother. I did so earlier. When I came to check on her, the bowl was untouched.”

For the next couple of days, nothing much happened. The Wyldlings died on the frozen waste, Sarra stayed in the puzzle room, though she eventually ate their humble offerings of food. For Virgil, whose Anima was at Sollus, there was nothing he could do. He needed something else to advance to Knight Commander, and the monotony of their stay here wasn’t helping.

Frustrations built up. He found himself snapping at his comrades at the littlest things, and the others were much the same. He had to resort to isolating himself from them by taking long walks down the nearly endless corridors. Sometimes he relaxed on the garden floor, taking in the warm rays of the sun, though he kept a wary eye on any hornets.

It was on one such day, when Virgil was sunbathing, that Amiri popped in to yell, “Sarra managed it!”

“Huh?”

“She figured out a code and opened a door!”

“Oh!” Virgil scrambled from his makeshift hammock and put his shirt on. He and Amiri practically ran to the puzzle room.

Sarra’s face was gaunt: sunken cheeks and prominent cheekbones. But there was a manic light behind her eyes. When Virgil and Amiri arrived, only a few of the grooves were lit up with Sarra’s Animus and the pattern on the door was shifting. Even Virgil could tell that it was unlocking and getting ready to open.

“How long?” He muttered.

“It’s been like that for an hour,” Balliol said.

“Hush!” Sarra shot him a glare before she focused her attention back on the pattern.

It took another thirty minutes before the door finally unlocked and opened. Virgil gulped as the five of them entered the newly revealed passage. Sarra wore a triumphant grin.

The passage stretched for nearly a longstride which eventually led into a large space. The chamber’s lights turned on as soon as they stepped inside. Their eyes were immediately drawn to the giant throne at the back. Seated on it was a Colossus. It was made of the same metallic alloy of the artefact armour Amiri now wore and it was at least seven paces tall. It was not a common Colossi.

“Vasi...” Sarra breathed.

“At least,” Virgil answered.

Vasi. A Royal level artefact, three tiers higher than the Koinos. A single gauntlet from that thing was worth more than the entire town of Faron’s Crossing, it was probably powerful enough to kill the Whisperer three times over.

Balliol grinned. “And here is our path home.”

The rest of them nodded numbly, but they were brought to grim reality by Sarra’s words.

“Only if we could get it to work.”

_______

“Welcome back, mistress.” The rosebud blossomed into a tiny bowing figure.

She Who Whispers in the Light grunted as she settled down on the captain’s chair of the Rose’s Thorn. She waved her hand lazily, “Show me what they did during their voyage.”

“As you wish.”

The vessel spirit dissolved into motes of light then coalesced into a series of images that flowed so quickly that it was nearly impossible to parse with the naked eye. In fact, the Whisperer didn’t even look at them. Instead, her Field expanded throughout the entirety of the Ocean Skiffer’s interior. After an hour, Whisperer retracted her Field and yawned.

“I didn’t expect them to encounter a cowardly Unformed,” she hummed. “And they received a Chaos seed for their troubles. Interesting.” But it was ultimately a low Ennoia seed, thus pretty much worthless to the Whisperer.

Instead, the state of the plane’s barrier was what interested her. The rip that the skiffer had punched through had widened, much as she expected, and ambient Chaos slowly permeated into the interior.

The Siderious’ automatic functions attempted to close the breaches, but with the presence of the humans within it, it could not completely seal itself away. And the presence of Chaos refiners will eventually raise the ambient Chaos levels. The more there were, the faster it would be. Still, Whisperer couldn’t contend with an entire Legion. Not unless she wanted to draw attention to this plane.

Commanding the local Wyldlings to their deaths was easy enough. She merely had to control the Nest. However, doing so would leave traces of her so any passing Chaos Lord could see. Thus, the rather delicate task of convincing the Hearts to do as she willed without resorting to outright control had kept her here for the past weeks. Well, the process was well on its way and the only thing left was to wait until the ambient levels were enough that she could reach the Siderious.

From there, it was a simple matter to take control.

The Whisperer smiled. Another step closer to her goals...and freedom.