“Welcome and congratulations, Hunter, for reaching the Obsidian Shard.”

“Error, no record exists of the Hunter’s entrance in the Polus Coelum. Scanning.”

“Anima is below the requisite level.”

“Radiant Alignment.”

“Unlocking last words.”

A series of words that Yuriko barely understood flashed in front of her eyes. She was floating in darkness.

‘A dreamscape?’ she thought. How? Just touching the obelisk? Oh no! What happened to her body? Was she just standing there?

Different coloured lights made the words appear in front of her. She didn’t know the language, though the letters were familiar. Old Imperial? Verdanian made use of the same alphabet.

The darkness fluctuated and before she could do anything, it receded and she found herself in a room. But she was merely a disembodied set of eyes. She could neither move nor see her body.

The scene around her changed into…a palace chamber?

There were tall marble pillars, a roof made of the same, though covered in elaborate paintings that mimicked the Chaos Streams. The Radiant Sun was there, and around it was a halo of darkness. The streams flowed around the sun’s halo, and what little came close were drawn in and…devoured?

The Luminous Moon was on the opposite side, though Yuriko didn’t know what it was doing. Around the moon were irregularly shaped islands.

The area she was in didn’t have any walls. Her vision was brought towards the edge and she was able to look out. There were clouds below the building. Every now and then, it thinned enough that she could see forests, hills, and rolling plains below. She was at least a couple of leagues above. Yuriko shivered at the height even as the winds howled around her.

“Kogasi.”

A voice came from behind her. Soft yet firm. Feminine.

A figure made of sculpted light appeared floating above the mosaic floor. It was vaguely humanoid but its limbs were long and spindly, with a blocky torso and a conical head.

“Huh?” Yuriko gasped.

“It is the name of this plane. Made by the Old Ones and liberated by the Ancients.”

“Who…who are you?” Yuriko asked.

The figure didn’t answer her question though. Rather, it continued to speak.

“...this plane was once used to breed and train the Old Ones’ foot soldiers. Now, it is used to breed and train beasts and eventually train our soldiers and warriors.” The figure turned to Yuriko. “You’ve managed to make your way into this plane. Rewards are due. You may stare at the Stone of Enlightenment and from there, take what wisdom and knowledge you can.”

“Uh…”

The figure faded away as did the scene around her. The next thing she knew, she was in front of a massive black wall.

Made of the same material as the obelisk, she assumed.

Her eyes darted about the surface, seeing strange markings and undecipherable words. There were drawings of people on it too, in a sequence where each figure was in a particular pose.

For some reason, she couldn’t move her eyes away from the glyph sequence. Even as she watched, the figures appeared to move. Soft lights flowed around a figure, a circulation pattern, she guessed.

She tried to memorize the pattern but it seemed to slip from her mind as soon as she moved to the next figure. The glyphs portrayed a series of movements for the physical body and the Animus. She could feel a faint Intent radiating from them: movement, speed, fluidity.

She desperately tried to hold it all in her head but as before, the knowledge flowed through her mind as if she were trying to grasp water.

Other sequences drew her eye. There was one where the figures danced in the air, stepping off the ground and running on the clouds. With that one, she couldn’t even see a glimmer of the circulation pattern.

Another was of a figure drawing a bow. The arrows it shot multiplied into dozens as it flew in the air. Another was of an arrow that grew brighter and faster the farther it went from the shooter.

Yuriko tried desperately to remember those images, but…nothing. As soon as her eyes moved from the set, she lost all memory of the patterns.

There were hundreds of sets along the wall. Hundreds that she could see from where she was. She could not move anything but her eyes, but it was fruitless. Of some techniques, she retained only a memory of the possibilities.

She knew that there was a technique that would let her step so lightly that she could dance upon the tips of the long grass, where her weight wouldn’t even make it bend.

She knew there was a technique that would let her parry in such a way that no attack by the enemy would penetrate her guard.

She knew that there was a technique that would let her make a slash into the air, and a target hundreds of paces away would be cut.

All these, she knew but she had no idea how to perform them any more than she did on how to build a landcrafter.

Finally, she could feel a tugging in her middle. Her time was running short.

Her eyes fell onto a set of figurines demonstrating a technique. It was a specific way to circulate her Animus underneath her skin. The way the strands moved created a runescript pattern.

Adamant. That was the word and the Intent. A figure smashed the demonstrating image with a mace and when the metal smashed against the skin, it was the one that shattered and left the practitioner unharmed.

A force pulled her back. She could feel her heart rising to her throat. It was as if she fell from a great height. The winds blew her hair into her face and she could feel anticipation building within, waiting for the inevitable violence of striking a hard surface.

“Ugh.”

Yuriko blinked her eyes. She was back inside her body and the obelisk was cold to the touch.

The sun was halfway down to the west, and a quick check with her time-sense told her that three hours had passed. Her Anima was withdrawn into her body and about half of her Animus reserves were drained.

She staggered back and sat down on her heels as fatigue hit her. The stone platform she was on was warm with the rays of the sun.

“What was that?” she whispered. “Damien?”

A memory stone.

“A what?”

Built by the Ancients.

“Ancients? Like you? Was that crystalline creature an Ancient?”

No, that was the obelisk spirit. Damien’s voice held a trace of amusement.

“Spirit?”

But her Ancestor didn’t answer.

“Damien?”

Yuriko shook her head. He ran out of whatever it was that he needed to talk to her. The timing was incredibly annoying and it happened every time she asked him more than a few questions. Well, she had to work with her limitations.

It was close enough to dusk that she decided to camp here for the evening. Though she moved out into the grass instead of setting up on the stone. She cut through the grass and created a clearing three paces across. The fire pit went in the centre secured by runescript lines to contain the heat and fire. She poured water from her canteen into the stew pot and dumped meat jerky and a few tubers inside. The grass made for adequate fuel but it gave out black smoke that would be visible for longstrides around.

It would either warn away predators or attract them, she wasn’t quite sure. Still, she needed the warm stew to settle herself down. She kept a wary eye on the skies, in case the Skybeast decided to have a go at her. She set down a couple of alarm runescript stones on the perimeter. They were river stones she carved on that only needed to be filled with her Animus to work. Each one lasted for four hours, after which they would send a flare in her mind to indicate that they needed recharging.

The signal was different from when it detected an intruder, so there was no danger of that kind of mix up. Finally, she pulled out a woven blanket she made from vine fibres and set it up as a makeshift tent. She used her shovel and her spear to prop it up.

Once the food was ready, she ate directly from the pot. As she was now in the grasslands, she didn’t have ready access to water other than what her condenser canteen made. Not until the next morning anyway. She’d dug a small pit away from camp and left another runescripted stone inside. The stone would attract moisture much like the canteen would, though at a much slower pace.

Yuriko copied the runescript lines from the canteen, the ones pertaining to gathering and containing water, to the stone. But for some reason, the efficiency was much worse. It could, at least, also bring up moisture from the ground. It would create a small puddle that had enough water for her to rinse her utensils and let her wash her hands and face.

Unfortunately, creating a bath with it wasn’t really possible.

She could create more moisture gathering rocks, of course, but she would have to power each one with her Animus to get it to work. That single stone, along with her condenser canteen, required roughly ten lumens for four hours worth.

Ancestors. If she was back in Sharom now she would have learned more runescript words. Life would definitely be easier then.

Oh.

The loneliness must have been worse than usual if she dreamt of reading books to learn runescript. For that matter, she dearly wished that she had grabbed Master Alfein’s book from her duffel before she chased after the barbarians and her fellow cadets.

Her bout of melancholy almost made her ignore the rustling in the grass. She initially thought it was the wind, but no, the breeze was too light to produce that kind of noise. Yuriko stood, her fingers extended to create the Animus blade. It would take her a couple of seconds to create it, though it no longer took her full concentration to do so. She could inlay that pattern, she realized, and summoning the blade would be as fast as thought. But she was mindful of Damien’s words when they first talked. He was scandalized at creating inlays.

Golden flames erupted from her body as she flared her Anima and at the same time, she created the blade which extended twelve inches from her fingertips. Whatever it was that rustled the grass froze stiff, but it was close enough that she could see its outline.

She took a step towards it. The moment she did, it bolted straight away.

Whish, whoosh!

It was a panicked flight. Yuriko stared dumbly after it. Well now. Was it frightened when she flared her Anima? Was that the reason why she couldn’t find any prey? They felt her presence?

Clicking her tongue, she retracted her Anima and released the blade. She couldn’t reabsorb the spent Animus but then it only cost her about ten lumens to form one. She had a hundred and twenty by now, minus ten for her inlaid Facet. Damien’s exercises had made her senses more acute when it came to determining how much Animus she had down to the lumen.

Her previous thoughts broken, she settled back down to ruminate about what else she learned from the obelisk.

Kogasi. The name of this plane. A place that was meant to create foot soldiers for the Old Ones and since converted by the Ancients to train their own foot soldiers.

The question is: who were the Old Ones and the Ancients?

There was no mention of either of them in the history lessons. She couldn’t speak for the books since she had never read one, er, including History class’ textbook. She’d passed that class by listening to the instructor and asking Krystal for her notes. And Braden and Orrin’s notes, for that matter. She cracked open the book once and closed it immediately when she saw how dense the letters were. That and there were no pictures to break the wall of words.

The obelisk also referred to something…Polus something or other?

She had a feeling that she knew what that was. The spire reached all the way to the sky and was clearly visible even in the twilight.

She should find her answers there. More importantly, she realized as her heart fluttered with excitement, if the plane was meant to train footsoldiers, it meant that there were definitely people here.

‘I’m not alone here,’ she thought with a happy smile.

Unless they all got wiped out.

Yuriko froze, then, “Damien, you rotter!”

Muffled laughter was all she heard from him, and she was of half a mind to go into the dreamscape and kick him where the sun didn’t shine!