“Hide me,” She Who Whispers into the Light said. To the rays that illuminated the hallway within the fortress city of Siderious. Well, her tiny homunculus said it. Her main body hovered beyond the walls, concealed from sight by the very light that made seeing possible.

The tiny Whisperer wove the strands of light, wrested from the ambient Chaos, as a cloak around her form even as she pushed herself upright. The hallway seemed large, gigantic even, but that was only because the homunculus was about ten inches tall.

Whisperer’s arm contained a fraction of her Anima, just enough to form a clone, too, but she didn’t want a full-sized one and didn't really need it either. She wasn’t inside the Siderious to fight, but to explore. And possibly negotiate. If she had to fight to get her way, no amount of power she stuffed into the homunculus would matter and she would have already lost.

She blinked at where the Luminous Sorceress disappeared. The slide had sealed itself up already. The thinness of ambient Chaos, as well as the Rule to prohibit flying was troublesome but manageable. To begin with, there was only one way to go. Forward.

The Fortress part of the Siderious was huge, but then, the entire planar fortress was bigger than the Rumiga plane. The absolute Chaos control, the hidden factories, and the plane-destroying weapons were just part and parcel of the mobile fortress. Those weren’t what she was after.

The hallway curved gently to a side, and maybe a slope so gentle that a lesser creature would not have noticed. The Whisperer noticed though, that the hallway turned to the left and sloped downwards. She walked cautiously, watching out for trap doors that could spring open without warning, and cause her to drop right where the Sorceress went. As she was now, her homunculus would be destroyed in the blink of an eye should she encounter the Mishala woman again.

She kept to the left wall, hand tracing the hallway as she walked. She spent hours just walking, following the gentle curve which switched to the right or left every so often. Enough to know that she wasn’t going in circles, and to make out that the hallway was a giant runescript word. As far as she could tell, it was a gathering word, which took the ambient Chaos, among other energies, and funnelled it towards someplace else. The middle of the formation, she assumed, but she also knew that the fortress contained many runescript formations.

Her goal was the logic centre. Where the animating spirit was. Or rather, where an animating spirit was. She was sure there was more than one in this place. It was too huge and complex for a single intelligence, no matter how specialised, to control every aspect. She was also sure that several of the animating spirits had either gone insane or otherwise indisposed. Otherwise, the fortress would not have become the derelict it was today.

Days passed. Then weeks. Perhaps Seasons, but the Whisperer could no longer tell. The way the hallways twisted and turned played havoc with her timesense, and her connection with her main body outside had already broken. She wasn’t that worried though, because even if this homunculus died, as long as no Anima destruction techniques or tools were used, this little bit of Anima would eventually make its way back to the original. It may take time, but it will arrive, along with the memories of what she saw.

The hallways darkened, then turned translucent. Then, she found herself walking on transparent stone, and it overlooked a vast garden underneath. The ceiling let in rays from the Radiant Sun, and that light bypassed the homunculus body, though not through her own efforts but because of the runescript halls.

The hallways eventually descended towards the core regions, or rather, a formation core region. The centre of the Siderious wasn’t that easy to reach.

After several weeks of travel, Whisperer’s Chaos Well was nearly dry. Each mote of aspected Chaos was consumed to keep her body functioning, and the lack of sustenance was telling. Her body mass had dropped to half of what it originally had been, and her cheeks and eyes were sunken.

It was then that she encountered a chamber of…well, puzzles. Cyphers, codes, locks, and keys. It was a checkpoint to prevent passage, but she couldn’t help but feel as though she were a mouse in a maze, watched over with curiosity and amusement. Perform for her meal, as it were. She could feel the spirit’s gaze coming from the ceiling, and the wordless prompt to go through with what they wanted her to do.

And it was either she did that or face elimination. Nothing overt, but the way the runescript lines along the walls powered up with hostile Animus made things quite clear. So. She jumped through hoops, went through mazes, solved puzzles, and whatever else the animating spirits wanted. An audience with them was what she wanted anyway.

She hopped through every hoop, dodging falling spikes and darts. She found the quickest way through a maze while the path behind her crumbled and fell.

At the very least, they didn’t require her to fight. Using her domain still needed Chaos to power it, even if she only needed a spark. The gauntlet was devoid of absorbable ambient Chaos, and every little bit she exuded was siphoned up by the walls. A single battle would wipe her out, and they seemed to know that too.

So, it was days and days of games and puzzles. The physical ones weren’t bad, but the mental and logical ones made her brain heat up so much that steam practically rose from her hair. But she did it.

She stood within a small chamber, with an altar set in a corner. She sat on her heels and waited, and not soon after, one of the Siderious’ animating spirits came out. It was a strange-looking thing, of steam, clockwork, and oil. It wasn’t even vaguely humanoid but looked more like a sphere.

The spirit made clicking noises within itself that harmonized to create words.

“What. Do. You. Seek.”

“I’ve come to bargain.” Whisperer smiled.

______________

Sadeen gasped as a wave of pleasure went through her body, a crescendo that left her moaning and semi-conscious, all while shivering. Her hands, her fingers squeezed Virgil’s shoulders and a moment later, she dropped bonelessly on his chest, the tiny room was filled with echoes of their gasps and moans. Now, both of them were a sweat-soaked, filthy mess, and she giggled as he pulled her into a tight embrace.

He hadn’t shaved his chin for quite a while, and the bristles on them tickled her cheek. She sighed in contentment, fully satisfied for the first time in four years, or so. The last time they should have met was a couple of years ago after all, and he’d disappeared from Rumiga by then.

His strong hand stroked her back and played with her hair. He kissed her forehead and she shivered again. The darkness of the room would have concealed her flushed skin, but both of them had exceptional eyesight.

“Well…” Virgil croaked, his throat was probably as dry as her own.

Sadeen’s Animus tendrils groped at the side table but didn’t find what she wanted. She was a bit too unsteady to Shape water though, so her tendrils continued exploring until she found a thermos underneath the bed. It did contain water so she fished it out and popped it open. She manipulated a globule and stuffed it into her husband’s mouth, who grunted and drank his fill while she did the same.

She pulled herself off him and cuddled at his side, luxuriating in the feel of him, his toughness and strength. After an hour or so, when she was feeling frisky again and was about to pounce, he chuckled and said, “I’m beat and we’ve been in this room for days already. I missed you and…”

A couple of hours later, Sadeen relented and got up. She freshened up and waited for Virgil to do the same, chuckling to herself when he hobbled over to the bathroom. As he bathed and washed the sweat and stains off himself, Sadeen shook of blissful laziness and focused her mind.

“Virg?”

“Hmmm?”

“Why are all of you here?”

“Ancestors, Dee. You only thought to ask that now?” Virgil grumbled from the bathroom. The space was small, but it had running water, a shower, but no bathtub. Too bad about that, but she could have Shaped the stone if she wanted to. Or she would have if she didn’t know that the entire place had runescript weaving all over.

“You distracted me,” Sadeen whined.

“Me? You were the one who dragged us into my room?” Virgil teased.

“Oh, you didn’t want to?” Sadeen pouted.

“I did. I did.” Virgil’s head peeked out of the bathroom door. His hair was damp and he’d kept it short. Or maybe one of the others did. It was a bit uneven and annoyed her sensibilities.

“You need a trim,” she muttered.

“Alright.”

So she did. She evened out his hair, then shaved all of the hair off his upper lip and jaw. While the tickling sensation was nice, it did irritate her when he kissed her in more sensitive areas.

Rubbing her hand against his clean-shaven face, she nodded in approval. “Much better.”

“Thanks, my love.”

She continued to rub his shoulders and chest lovingly. He’d lost a layer of fat and put on more muscle, much to her delight. She traced circles on his shoulder, and kneaded his back, finding little knots of muscle there that she worked on. It was good that he’d gained power and shortened the gap between them. If he actually made it to Knight Dominus, the Progenitor wouldn’t object to her bringing him back to Realmheart.

Between the bouts of desperate lovemaking, the two of them exchanged news.

“How’re the kids?” he had asked, a note of uncertainty and guilt heavy in his voice.

“Marron became a Knight.” Sadeen paused and grinned. “Yuri’s a Journeyman and a little Sorceress in training. Ah, she’s in Realmheart with the rest of the clan.” She paused, then continued, keeping her tone light. “The 29th Pia’Vasi asked for an engagement.”

“What!” Virgil spluttered. “How dare he!” he yelled.

“Now, now,” Sadeen crooned, “it’s not up to you,” she added in a softer voice, “it’s up to our baby.”

Virgil’s expression was sour and frustrated, and the next bout of lovemaking had been sharp and jagged, a bit rough, but she liked mixing things up. He did know how to push all of her buttons.

Afterwards, he said, “If he makes her cry, I’ll gut him.”

Sadeen grinned and stroked his face. There was nothing either of them could do right now, and so they both put it at the back of their minds.

Sadeen finished up with her impromptu massage and stretched out on the bed.

“Massage,” she said peremptorily and Virgil complied. He got a bit frisky but she paid more attention to his words than his wandering hands.

“We’ve been here more than a year,” he began. “Things were rough at first, but got easier the longer we stayed and the more active the place became. There are orchards, and meat animals, of sorts, and a never-ending supply of water. Weapons, armour, and knowledge, too.”

The last bits were good reasons to stay, but not to this extent, and not when people back in Rumiga had been waiting for them. When she said as much, he grunted.

“Aside from the Whisperer blockading the Chaos channel, we didn’t have a vessel to use. It took us weeks to travel from the Tidelands to this place, it would have taken longer to Wyldwalk.”

“Besides,” he added, “Sarra’s intuition and techniques pointed that we should stay.”

“An inquisitor’s powers aren't enough. You know better than that.”

“Aye, but we did find out what it was we were supposed to find.”

“And that is?”

“Well, if you can get up I can show you.”

“Fine, fine.” Sadeen rolled her eyes. She did need to take a longer bath though. “Give me a few minutes and we’ll go.”