Yuriko blinked in confusion. A mountain just appeared out of thin air, and from the looks of it, she wasn’t even sure how high it was. Clouds obscured the slope near the summit, and for all she knew, it could reach all the way to the sky’s boundary.

No, the bigger issue was how in Chaos did it obscure itself until she and Tiernan were practically at its foothills?

From how flat the plains were, she should have seen it from dozens of leagues away. The two of them had only been travelling for half a day and a couple of hours of that was with her running. She couldn’t have covered more than five leagues, at that.

“Miss Davar, look!” Tiernan pointed down the slope. Yuriko looked and saw what he wanted her to see. Granite edifices. Lines that looked lighter than the surrounding grey rocks. Roads or walkways, she thought.

“People?” she wondered out loud.

“I hope so. Uhm,” Tiernan nodded towards the structures, “the Ebon Horizon is in that direction. But I’m not sure if she’s in that settlement or beyond it.”

“Well, only one way to find out.”

“Are we going to triangulate?”

“Huh? No. We’re going there.”

“Eh? But isn’t that dangerous? Miss Davar, please!”

“Call me Yuriko, please,” she sighed. “Caution is all very well, but if we dawdle, who knows what we’ll run into.” She whispered half under her breath, “Besides, I’d rather have something solid to fight if I have to.”

No more of those melty rock things, or disappearing spectres. If the populace there was hostile, well…she’d deal with it.

“...yes, ma’am.”

“Yuriko.”

“Yuriko,” he repeated faintly.

She gave a satisfied nod and they started walking towards the presumed settlement. Tiernan kept muttering under his breath and thanks to her Anima, she could hear every word. Most of it was prayers to the Ancestors to see them safe, others were curses, mostly directed at the pirates. Some were addressed to himself. “Keep down, Chaos burn you! Now isn’t the time!”

She ignored him as best as she could. Some of his cursing were oaths she’d never heard of before. What’s keelhauling and why is swabbing the deck so onerous? He seemed to be afraid of such punishment, and he spoke of stabbing his past self for choosing a long-ranging merchant ship for his internship.

“‘See the rest of the planes,’ they said. Visit nations beyond the Empire. It would widen your horizons! Why didn’t I just pick a ship with a nice safe route in between the Imperial territories?”

Merchant marines, huh?

Her cousins sated their wanderlust by working for such ships. Maybe she ought to consider the career path too? She would be defending the Empire in a different way, by making sure her shipping lanes were safe and outlying planes received timely supplies. But she supposed serving in the Legions was much the same, though perhaps there would be more fighting. She would have thought the marines would fight more Wyldlings than other humans, but from the trip so far, the greater threat had been the Xylarchy.

How did they find the Ebon Horizon so quickly anyway? It had been barely a few hours since they started the repairs. Logic would have said that exiting Bella from the Veil rather than the channel would have meant a greater distance between them. Otherwise, why did the captain risk the dangers of crossing the Veil?

An hour later, Yuriko felt they’d made steady progress. She could see more details of the settlement, and she was sure she saw human-shaped figures moving about. The way the mountain suddenly loomed in front of her probably meant that space and distance was a bit weird here.

“We’ll be there in an hour, I think,” Yuriko said.

“How can you tell, Mi…uh, Yuriko? I can barely make out the details. Everything’s so dark out here.”

“It is?” Yuriko squinted. It felt not much different from a night in the planes. Granted, the clouds covered the bright Chaos streams, and despite her time sense telling her that it was just past noon, not a hint of the Radiant Sun showed.

“Yes, the only reason I could make out the mountain, and the buildings is the shape.” He muttered. “If not for the light of your Protective Field, I wouldn’t even be able to see past my nose.”

“It’s not that bad,” Yuriko said.

“I suppose. I guess the bright night skies back home are just too convenient.”

The Chaos flows at night were bright enough that it only took minimal additional lighting to allow someone to read a book. As long as it wasn’t the Dark Moon anyway. At that time, the Chaos streams also dimmed down, but it was still bright enough that nobody would run into anything outdoors.

Here, it was darker than usual, but her sight wasn’t that bothered. Perhaps it was because she used Enhanced Sight often enough that even inactive, it did something for her. Oh well.

A few minutes later, the land started to slope up. It was still as barren as ever but when she looked at the mountain, she saw something that wasn’t stone. Embedded into the slope, and she couldn’t believe she didn’t notice it before, was a twisted brown coloured root that rose up to the heavens. It was nearly a quarter of the mountain’s width and reminded her of an oak tree’s roots. There was only one though.

“A pillar to the skies?” Tiernan muttered.

Yuriko snorted. The last time she went inside a heaven pillar she wound up in a different plane. “The Ebon Horizon isn’t up there, is it?”

“No, not at all. It’s somewhere beyond the mountain,” Tiernan insisted.

Half an hour later, they were close enough to make out the details of the settlement. It was walled, of course, with the same coarse stone as everything else. There were diamond-shaped things standing on one point along the entire border of it. Robed figures stood guard at the wooden gates, about five of them. Two of them held polearms, glaives, held straight with the butt resting on the ground next to their right feet. The other three carried a weapon that looked remarkably similar to a Plasma Caster, save that the barrel was bulkier and the entire thing was a bit shorter.

They had seen Yuriko and Tiernan, of course. It was hard to miss the glow of her Anima. To their credit, the guards raised their weapons but did not point directly at them. And they waited until the two of them had come close enough that they wouldn’t have to shout to be heard.

They didn’t cover their faces entirely, and Yuriko was relieved to note that they were human. Well, humanoid, anyway. One of the guards had distinct beast-kin features, though it looked canine rather than feline, reptilian, or ursine.

One of them stepped forward, a hard-faced woman with greying hair and fine lines radiating from the corner of her eyes. Her voice was gravelly too, sounding like linen scraping against rocks. Too bad Yuriko didn’t understand a word she said.

“Hello?” Yuriko said in Wojan, hoping the trade tongue was as universal as she hoped.

“A blessed day under the Holy One to you travellers.” Without skipping a beat, the lead guardswoman shifted to fluid Wojan.

The guards were standing within a few paces of the wall, Yuriko realised, that emitted some kind of pale blue light that blended into the shadows.

“A blessed day to you,” Yuriko cautiously mimicked the greeting. “May we enter the town to rest and purchase supplies?”

“Of course, traveller,” the guardswoman said. “But you will have to leave your weapons in the barracks. No one may carry arms within the boundary of the Euphoril.”

“Of course.” Yuriko agreed easily, mostly because she no longer relied on physical weapons and the one thing she’d never leave behind was safely tucked within her Anima. Unreachable unless she died. “The light protects?”

“Of course, traveller.” The woman raised an eyebrow. “You must be fresh come to the Pure Lands.” The woman smiled. “I’d love to hear about how you wound up here, but please, enter into safety.”

“Thank you.” Yuriko smiled.

Behind her, she could hear Tiernan’s pulse start to race. The guards behind the woman didn’t lower their weapons, and if anything, looked even more tense. The lead guard stepped aside and gestured towards the gate. She proceeded through, and once inside, looked back and gestured for them to come.

Yuriko calmly walked forwards, and as soon as the blue light touched her Anima, she could feel it press against her, and when brute force didn’t work, it formed hair-thin tendrils and attempted to bore through. Yuriko, acting on instinct, let the tendrils of light penetrate her Anima, but as soon as they touched her skin, she prevented them from going through. They persisted for a little while before they retracted.

The guards were still tense though she noticed a subtle relaxation once they saw the tendrils touch her. Shrugging to herself, she moved on towards the gate. It took her a couple of steps to realize that Tiernan hadn’t moved from where he stood, and now, he was outside of her Anima.

He had a vacant stare, but as soon as she met his eyes, he shook himself out of his stupor, patted his chest and arms then heaved a sigh of relief. The stiff tension he had while they were outside eased.

He walked up next to her and nudged the small of her back with his hand. Yuriko let herself be led inside. Once they were under the arch of the gate, another light flashed, this time, it was bright green. Nothing seemed to happen, and when it receded the guards had relaxed completely.

“You aren’t changelings. Thank the Holy One,” the lead guardswoman said. Out of immediate sight, but now visible once Yuriko crossed the threshold, was a full team of guards, each holding their version of a Plasma Caster. And these ones had definitely been aimed at them. “Stand down.”

The guards lowered their weapons, then tapped their left hand against their right shoulder then quickly returned the appendage back to the weapon’s stock. A salute, Yuriko supposed.

“I apologise for the deception,” the guardswoman said, “but you can never be too sure of new faces. I am Force Leader Levain Tremal and I welcome you to the town of Euphoril. Please, come this way.”

Yuriko and Tiernan exchanged glances before following. Yuriko retracted her Anima just beneath the surface layer of her skin, where it lay discreetly yet would still protect her from any penetrating attack.

“You said ‘changelings’? What do you mean?” Yuriko hurried up next to Levain.

“The natural denizens of the Pure Lands,” the woman answered. “They hate the light of the Holy One and would stop at nothing to destroy His Roots.”

They emerged from under the wall, and Yuriko got her first view of the town. The heaven pillar commanded the eye. A single tendril, which was several hundred paces wide, lay at the other end of town, where the road that led in from the gate led directly to. From how Levain gestured, she obviously meant that thing. A root?

The woman led them to a longhouse built right up to the wall. Like the rest of the structures, it was made of grey stone but there were stone diamonds set all over the place. On poles along the streets, on top of the blockish houses, and along the wall, of course. Each one shed just enough blue light that nothing was left unilluminated. Even the shadows cast by the people walking by seemed too pale.

Everyone wore the same sort of robe as the spectre they saw, though here, the hoods weren’t covering their heads. Levain had pushed back her hood as soon as they exited the wall tunnel, revealing short-cropped hair.

She entered the longhouse and gestured for them to follow. Then walked behind a desk, pulled out a couple of paper sheets and a couple of pens.

“Fill these up then place your weapons on the desk.”

Yuriko glanced at the paper, then only wrote her name, declining to answer the probing questions. Tiernan, however, wrote down everything, including his citizenship to the Empire, his current occupation, age. He even started to reveal his Facet before Yuriko grabbed his hand. He jolted, stared about in confusion, then reddened when he noticed her hand on his.

Levain took the papers, signed off on them, then looked pointedly at the Plasma Lancets and belt knives.

With a shrug, Yuriko unhooked both from her belt and laid them on the desk. Tiernan did the same, though with much more reluctance than before.

Levain took a blue ribbon and wrapped them around each weapon set, then attached a plaque to them. Yuriko’s were marked with a plaque that bore a silhouette of a turtle, while Tiernan’s had a rosebud. Levain then gave both of them a small token with symbols matching the plaques. As the both of them were about to turn to leave, the woman stopped them.

“Wait, let me get you your robes.”

“Huh?” Yuriko blinked.

Levain didn’t answer but just gestured to them to wait as she left them, returning only a few minutes later with folded clothes.

“Wear them within the town. You can either buy them when you leave or return them to me.” She said as she led them to the antechamber. “Now then, you may retrieve your weapons at that time. Do not lose the tokens. Your weapons will not be returned if you lose them.” She said grimly.

Gulping audibly, Tiernan placed his token inside his hip satchel. Yuriko moved to do the same, but changed her mind and used the safe pouch hanging from her neck instead. She put on the grey robe. It opened from the front and was fastened with laces. It was quite roomy and blessedly warm.

“Enjoy your stay!” Levain waved them off then headed back to the gate.

“Now what?” Tiernan asked as soon as they were alone.

“Now? I want food.” Yuriko muttered. She caught the smell of roasting meat and started to follow her nose.

“Hey wait!”