‘Damien, what…?’

Silence from the infuriating man who once again took control of her body without her leave. However, she didn’t feel his presence at all. It was as if he continued to slumber. But that couldn’t be right.

Those words she said couldn’t have come from her. She barely knew how to speak Old Imperial. Well, she could read it mostly, but barely better than Wojan or Ikash. Her second language was really Wojan, the trade tongue used by the Federation, and apparently by many other cultures across the Chaos Sea, as evidenced by her dealings in Bella plane. But Old Imperial?

The few lessons in the Academy and some lessons from Mum when she was but a child were the only times she studied Old Imperial, and she had never even heard of the phrases she uttered.

“Your Will, Ancient One?” The Warforged Athrodius asked.

“I…uh, stop…fighting,” she cobbled together. She had little trouble understanding what he said though.

“Understood.” His eyes blinked and changed colour several times. Yuriko took the chance to survey the battlefield.

Faeril and the others managed to draw much of the Drones’ attention after they created a short earthen half-wall that reached up to their waists. The Sha’ledras shot Animus arrows one after the other, with the constructs materialising as he pulled the bowstring.

Lucian had slammed into the hoplite line and was punching and kicking his way through. The others were either behind the half wall shooting their crossbows or conjuring Animus bolts. A couple used elemental attacks, gouts of flame or shards of ice. However, she could see reinforcements in the form of more Drones coming in, and in a few minutes, they would have been hit with hundreds more of the things.

At first, they continued attacking even as the Warforged Drones began to retreat. Then, once all the ones within reach of the melee fighters were dismantled, they noticed that the hostilities had stopped.

She saw Faeril and Lucian exchange glances, then looked at her in unison. She shrugged in reply.

“Your command?” the Athrodius said as soon as she looked back at him.

“I…uh,” Yuriko coughed. “Can you close this portal?”

“Portal to Siderious is permanent and cannot be closed from this side,” the Athrodius said.

“Siderious?” Yuriko asked, feeling the word to be somewhat familiar.

“Mobile Fortress Siderious.”

“Can you elaborate?”

“...clearance required. Please authenticate authority.”

Yuriko opened her mouth then paused. No unknown words or phrases came out, to her mild disappointment. While lost in thought, it occurred to her that if that portal couldn’t be closed then it couldn’t be the gate that Avos Zarek meant.

Did he mean?

She looked at the portal, and despite what he said, she couldn’t really see past the thick swirls of multi-hued Chaos streams. Curiosity nearly made her cross the threshold, but she stopped herself. This wasn’t the time to be crossing strange portals that would lead her to strange places even if her Davar-borne wanderlust practically demanded she take that step. Perhaps later once she wasn’t on an urgent mission.

She looked towards the Foreign Quarter and saw that the dividing gate was open. Did he mean that? Or perhaps he meant that they should curtail the Warforged from exiting the city.

“Did you and yours start leaving the city two years ago?”

“Yes. In response to an intrusion, it has been determined that scouting and expansion are in order.”

“Can you rescind that order?”

“Understood.”

Yuriko blinked. Was it that easy?

“Do not leave Synkrasia’s outer wall again, and do not attack those who live here.”

“Error, there are no current legal residents.”

“Uh, what about…” she clapped a hand over her mouth before she blurted out something she shouldn't have. The Athrodius’ eyes seemed to glimmer for a short moment.

“Please do not attack humans,” Yuriko restated.

“Battle level protocols have been lowered to minimum. Units will only retaliate if provoked. Warning, Inner Court Sanctum remains a restricted area. All unauthorised presences please vacate within two hours or face retribution.”

Yuriko nodded. As long as the Warforged didn’t leave the city, she could count the Avos’ request to be completed.

“Thank you.”

“Your Will, Ancient One.”

He saluted her with his sword, then spun on his heels and retrieved the remnants of his shield and arm. Then he marched back towards the panel and proceeded to repair himself.

“How did you manage that?” Lucian asked incredulously as Yuriko headed towards them.

She shook her head and said, “We’ve only two hours to get out. They will stop attacking you as long as you don’t attack them.”

“Truly?” Faeril gasped, his face bright with hope.

“Yes.” Yuriko said curtly as she eyed the rest of them. “Let’s get the others and go.”

There was no sense in going the roundabout route, and even less sense to use the tunnels and mine to return. It didn’t take half an hour to get to the place they left the others at.

Marron and Saki had mostly recovered by then, and her brother immediately looked her over. He nodded in relief afterwards, since Yuriko had not been injured in any way.

“Success?”

“Of sorts. I managed to talk to the Athrodius and he let us off. He agreed to no hostilities either, as long as the Warforged aren’t attacked.” Yuriko trailed off and glanced at her attendant. The woman had a grimace on her face and was muttering sourly. “Anyway, we can use the Foreign Quarter gate now and we have to leave in an hour or so.”

Little else was said. The entire group gathered their things while a select few were sent back to the garrison and the mines to catch up to the diversion teams. They would retreat the way they originally came from.

The trek across the Inner Court’s open spaces was quick and uneventful. The Drones were back in their formation squares and didn’t react to their passage. Soon enough, they were through the Foreign Quarter gate.

Blam!

Which promptly shut as soon as they were through. Yuriko looked down the wide boulevard, and with Enhanced Sight, could see the entrance tunnel they used to come into Synkrasia. There wasn’t really a need to return to Sorren’s Hollow, and the faster they returned to the surface, the faster they would get back home.

“This is where we part ways,” Yuriko said to Faeril, though only after a brief conference with her brother. “We will be returning to the surface. Ancestors watch over your people.”

“Leaving so soon?” Faeril gasped. “But let us at least have a farewell feast!”

“No need. Perhaps another time,” Yuriko said easily. “I enjoyed the hot springs. Er, I will probably come down here again, but not in the near future, I think.”

“I see. Well, thank you for freeing us from the Warforged’s imprisonment. May the land gods and sky spirits watch over you.”

“Farewell.”

They went down the boulevard quickly, Marron and Saki had regained their strength though there was an edge to their demeanour. When they were halfway to the tunnel, Yuriko glanced back. The Hollow residents were already out of sight.

_________

“That’s a good haul,” Delran Greenfield said as he entered Lucian’s storage room.

Lucian, for his part, gave the Imperial defector a sideways glance then resumed cataloguing the varied suits of armour and weapons that they’d collected from the armoury. Most of the weapons had some form of Animus expulsion built into them, though the efficiency was horrible unless they awakened its nascent spirit and bonded with it.

That or transplant an already bound spirit into the new weapon, something that would take weeks of dedicated ritual and meditation for an Adept-level binder.

But these weapons were simple enough to use by anyone with a modicum of training. Short spears, barely a pace long even with the metal spearhead, were inscribed with runescript lines that took Animus and projected it into a fire dart. Or another that projected a gust of wind strong enough to unbalance an unwary foe. The ones that produced shards of ice were the strongest, in his opinion. If the icicle managed to pierce the skin, it drew in the body’s heat and melted the icicle, leaving a gaping wound that bled profusely and affected the surrounding tissue with frostbite.

The armours were the best that could be found. They were cuirasses made of leather or eldbronze, the metal often found in ancient ruins. They were as tough as steel and held runescript weaving within the metal as well as around it. When worn as a set with armlets, greaves, and a sallet, the pieces resonated and created an Animus barrier that filled in the gaps.

All told, the haul they got from the foray into the Inner Court gave them thirty-seven varied elemental projection weapons and twelve full sets of armour. Not bad at all.

However, the greatest discoveries had long been taken from the skeleton of the city. Crafters’ blueprints, mostly, of machines and other technology that didn’t require a font of Animus to work. Those had been Ekelus City’s masterpieces, which were nothing more than reverse-engineered machines and the handful of blueprints that had been left in crystal storage devices, or hand-drawn on paper. The hand-drawn ones were either incomplete or untested, as evidenced by how much trouble the Federation took before they got a few key pieces working. But the foundations for the current war were long in the making.

“I take it you managed to silence them?” Delran persisted.

“Are you rotting stupid?” Lucian growled. “That girl took on an Athrodius and defeated it. She had a rotting Chaos-forsaken Anima Telum!”

“Oh,” Delran replied faintly, “but then…”

“They left already, without bothering to come back to the Hollow.”

“What? But… “ Delran fingered his chin, stroking a few wisps of hair he’d been trying to cultivate into a goatee. “That would mean the Empire knowing about this place.”

“We’ve little choice. I’m not about to commit suicide by trying to ambush them. Besides,” he added, “the tunnel they used to enter closed up behind them. The Lord Avos gave them the path and he closed it up. No, if the Verdanians want a piece of this action, they’d have to find another way down here.”

“So what then?”

“Well,” Lucian grunted, “I think we’ve worn out our welcome. I’ll have Furgus shake down the good professor, maybe he had another exotic trinket or proto-artefact left in him, and we’ll return to Garamus. Your Freethinkers are more than welcome to join. Get back at your old masters and all that.” He smirked as Delran backed up a couple of steps.

“N-no, I don’t think so. I still feel the weight of the Threads. Don’t mention the Freethinkers again.” He gulped and clutched at his chest. “I shouldn’t have said the name.” He cursed.

“Whatever. Well, if you’re not coming back to the surface then I suppose you’ll just languish in paradise.” Lucian smirked, “And, it's far from over. The Verdanians will be ejected from Rumiga. They shouldn’t have been allowed to get their claws here anyway.”

“The Gemheart. Or hearts, rather.” Delran said. “Good luck getting to them though, they’re located in the most secure facilities the Empire can manage.”

“Yes, but with these babies,” Lucian slapped a cuirass, “and a few more salvaged over the past years, we’ve got the makings of several battalions rated to match up against most of the Empire’s militia.”

“Militia… Oh, you’re going after the Watchtower? That place is as tough to crack as any other fortress. More since, well, it’s got stockpiles of Chaos shards, I hear.”

“Cut them off from supply and starve them out,” Lucian said. “The surrounding towns and villages aren’t that well fortified, courtesy of Haveena City’s decades of peaceful trade.” He cackled. “Decades of infiltration and intel gathering too.”

“Oh?”

“In fact, hostilities have already started, if the timeline given to me is correct,” he mused. “And with Ivala keeping the east side occupied, the rustic west is just ripe for plucking.”

“Didn’t those Verdanians say they were headed to Faron’s Crossing?” Delran asked.

“Oh? I didn’t know.” Lucian frowned.

But then again, perhaps this was his chance to match fists and weapons against Yuriko Davar again. He tapped his fingers against the armour. No, he’d likely get killed if he did. She was no doubt either a high-level Knight or already a Knight Captain, and from what he’d heard from Edmund Sevier and the others, she was rather young. A high priority target, in other words. Well, with the route they had to take, it would be weeks still until he got to Garamus. He had that much time left to decide what to do.