“An army? Whose?” Yuriko asked.

“It looks like a combined force from the Federation,” Saki answered. “The road stretches from north to south. I think it leads to that pillar and goes all the way to one of the cities.” She shrugged, “I’m not sure which one is to the east of the one we were near to…what was that name? Uan?”

“Uaran City,” Yuriko said. “East? Hmmm…was it Garamus City?”

“Probably. Does it matter?” Saki asked.

“I suppose not.” Yuriko cleared her throat. “So, a road? And an army? How many?”

“Perhaps five hundred. Non-combatants included.”

“Adepts?”

“I couldn’t tell how many exactly, young mistress. I saw a rather familiar figure leading them though.”

“Oh? Who?” Yuriko didn’t really know many people from the Federation. The Adepts that besieged Faron’s Crossing?

“That musclehead we met in Synkrasia.” Saki snorted.

“Oh…uhm, who?”

“Musclehead. He attacked you when we were in Synkrasia. When we entered Soren’s Hollow,” Saki said, frowning as she recalled the details. As for Yuriko, she was frowning, too. She remembered…er, something. Ah! He was the one who led them to the portal!

Hmmm, it’s been a while since then. Yuriko scratched the back of her neck and chuckled. “So, he’s in the army? If they’re here, I guess this was their path to Synkrasia? Unless they’re here for something else…”

“What else would they come to this forsaken place?” Saki grunted. “They also have nearly fifty carts and wagons, pulled by scaled oxen. I think they’re all awakened, too.” She smiled. “What do you intend to do, young mistress? Attack?”

“Hmmm, no need for that.” She answered quickly, “But I guess this means we’ll have company on the road to Synkrasia.”

“Wouldn’t they attack us if they saw us?” Saki noted.

“If they see us,” Yuriko muttered. “There’s more than one obsidian pillar, and more than one tunnel heading to Synkrasia, I wager. No need to risk our people. I…hmmmm, I think I want to raid them, I want to fight…but…”

Her blood craved battle and her mind wanted a challenge. Her Anima wanted to test itself, and her Mien wanted more…connections. Her impulses would not rule her, however.

Really? Came Damien’s mocking voice.

‘Yes, Mistress is the definition of impulsive.’ Fri’Avgi quipped, ‘Hie hie hie!’

‘Shut it!’ Yuriko yelled mentally, fuming until the duo’s mental presence diminished back to the recesses of her mind. ‘Hmph!’

“The nearest point of the road is five leagues from here, young mistress,” Saki said. “If we go now, we could catch up to them in a few hours. But that’s only if the two of us run.”

“You’re not leaving me!” Gwendith yelped, and Heron nodded.

“Shhh…” Yuriko waved placatingly. “As I’ve said, there’s no reason to fight them right now. They’ll reach the tower before we finish scouting a safe path there. So we’ll let them enter ahead.”

“And if they leave people behind?” Gwendith asked worriedly.

“Then we can defeat a weakened foe more easily,” Yuriko said decisively.

“The forest is crawling with vermin, young mistress. Perhaps we should clean them out first?” Saki continued her report.

“Wolves?”

“Among other beasts.” Saki frowned. “They are elementally touched beasts. I saw Gale Jaguars closer to the road. They’re fast and deadly. I don’t think they can go through that territory without casualties, not unless we purge the beasts.”

“I…” Yuriko chewed her bottom lip. “No, that would take too much time, I think. No, how many did you see anyway?”

“A dozen on the straight path,” Saki said. “Most on top of trees.”

“Ambush predators?”

“Most big cats are, young mistress,” Saki grinned. “Though the noblest of cats don’t need to hide, as their prey willingly come to them.”

“Uhm, sure?”

“She means your clan, Yuri,” Gwendith giggled.

“Oh,” Yuriko shrugged. “Think you can find an alternate path? Around their territory? If the forest is filled with Chaos touched…”

“Elemental touched, young mistress,” Saki said. “There’s a difference.”

“Uhm, what is it?”

“Elemental touched have focused changes while Chaos touched is mostly random.”

“Oh.”

By the time Saki finished relaying everything, the rain had stopped and it was time for dinner. The rest of the tents have been put up, and more cooking fires have been set up. She met with the rest of her council and Saki gave a summarized report. Afterwards, they decided to go with the original plan and simply not bother with the Federation unless they got in the way. After all, only Yuriko could effectively communicate with the Warforged.

She wanted to know more about the mechanical beings, but neither Fri’Avgi nor Damien could tell her what they were or where they originated from. The portal in the midst of Synkrasia was the best lead since she saw the drones carrying mined resources through it.

Fri’Avgi’s animating spirit didn’t know the Warforged at all, though she said that her memories were too hazy and fragmented anyway. Millennia of hibernation did have its toll. At least Yuriko knew that the artefact was something of a key for the Warforged and Damien remembered a few code words.

You just need to make your case with their commanders, I think. Damien said. It’s not as if they aren’t intelligent.

A guess was hardly a stable foundation for their plans though, Yuriko thought nervously. It was only the memory of how the Athrodius asked her for her commands that gave her the confidence.

The next day, Yuriko left the camp to scout. Directly east towards the road would be dangerous, she thought, but maybe she should assess the Gale Jaguars herself.

“I wonder if observing them would help with Sweeping Gale Style?” After a moment, she nodded. Last night, after dinner, she’d spent the time reviewing what she learned from the iron-furred wolves.

She remembered that even the way they breathed caused Resonance with the earth element. Of course, the way a wolf breathed was different from a human but she still tried to use it. She barely managed to get it to work the first time.

The breaths were slow and even. Long inhales, holding for a moment, then another long exhale. She kept it up for most of the night, and near midnight, she saw a mote of ambient Chaos spontaneously change to earth elemental mote as it entered her body. The elemental energy was too foreign to her body, however, and as soon as it entered her lungs, her Radiant energy swooped in from her core and consumed the earth elemental mote.

She felt her heart rate suddenly spike, then settle down. The earth elemental mote became a Radiant energy mote, then was subsumed into her core. Huh.

It was slower than just waiting for her Essence to just produce more Radiant energy. But if she wanted to use other elemental energies, she would have to make room in her core for them. She just wasn’t sure if doing that now was wise. She wasn’t even done with her Radiant Body Refinement.

Still, any kind of knowledge was good, and just finding out how to convert ambient Chaos to earth elemental energy was valuable by itself. She could also teach the methods to her people who can use earth elemental energies instead.

By the same token, if she managed to learn whatever secrets a Gale Jaguar had, then she could then use it to strengthen her friends. Heron’s techniques are all based on air, so this should help him. Perhaps he’d even be able to touch an Ennoia from it.

Mind made up, she headed straight east towards the Gale Jaguars’ territory instead of heading northeast. Ah, this way she’d be able to check on the Federation expedition, though they’d probably be near the tower by now.

With any luck, she’d find her first target within the hour.

___________

The attack came so suddenly that Yuriko barely had time to blink. After she made her way through the iron-furred wolves’ territory, she easily ventured into the Gale Jaguars’. She had gone down from the arboreal road and taken game trails in an effort to suss out the big cats.

One moment, there was nothing, then she registered something entering the range of her perceptive aura, and the next, the creature was already within striking distance. The big cat was just that, enormous. Three paces from nose to the tip of its tail, and two paces tall at the shoulders. Its claws were wickedly sharp, both forelimbs were extended to grab hold of her, and it had jaws agape to bite.

A timeless moment. The air shattered as Yuriko’s Anima flared to full strength and pushed the attack away. It landed nimbly a dozen paces away. Its yellow eyes stared mockingly back at her. It…was gorgeous. Yellow fur with black circles all over its body. The fur within the circles was a mild shade of blue, the colour of the clear skies. Its pupils, quite unlike other cats Yuriko had seen, weren’t slitted, but round.

Her hands twitched. She had to catch one!

And just like that, the jaguar leapt back and vanished into the bushes, faster than she could see.

“Wait!” she yelled as she launched herself into the trees.

Where was it? Ah, it was a tomcat, from what her perception found. She perceived a few scuff marks on a branch and another one a few paces away. She leapt towards that direction, easily making her way back onto the arboreal roads. She followed the tracks for a few minutes before they inexplicably disappeared.

“Huh?” she muttered as she looked around. “Eh? Are these really his tracks?”

Upon a closer look, the cuts on the branch didn’t look heavy enough for a cat of that size. She backtracked a bit, went around in circles, then inspected every inch of the area she could perceive, only to find… nothing.

“Awww,” she moaned in disappointment. “Come back…”

Sniff.

She missed her cat back in Rumiga City. Ah, Hunter Kitty, where are you now?

“I hope he’s alright…” she murmured as she went back to where she’d been ambushed. The jaguar had been quite decisive, especially when Yuriko had repelled him so easily.

Yuriko closed her eyes and tried to recall every detail of that moment. She had been strolling down the game trail. The Gale Jaguar suddenly ambushed her. It came from above, not quite directly, but at a steep angle. He crossed most of her Anima reach in an instant, and she flared her aura to push him away. They stared at each other for a long moment, then the jaguar fled.

Come to think of it, why did Saki call the big cats Gale Jaguars? She knew of the cat species, though they weren’t really native to Rumiga. Er, she liked looking at picture books since they had few words. Which meant she usually didn’t get a headache when she looked through them. More importantly, the illustrated encyclopedias in the Academy were fun to look at. An Illustrated Compendium of Imperial Flora and Fauna had been one of the required books in her Natural Sciences class, and she vaguely remembered that jaguars could be found in a few of the Empire’s Stable Planes. Usually in forests or jungles.

Well, she was in a forest now. And if these kitties wouldn’t even stay and fight, then they were troublesome opponents. That attack just then would have killed one of the guards. Gwendith or Asami would have been caught off guard, and quite possibly killed if they were careless.

Cold sweat ran down her back. They couldn’t travel through here. It would mean facing ambushes every so often. She wasn’t willing to lose her people, much less her close friends. As fluffy and adorable as the big cats were, she couldn’t risk it. Still, she needed to find the edge of their territories, otherwise, they might stray into more ambushes.

She could only hope that the obsidian tower wasn’t surrounded by the jaguars’ turf. But…she had the sinking suspicion that nothing was ever easy and that they’d face danger no matter what.