A purple plasma bolt drilled into the creature, a Wyldling of some sort, Riley thought, though they were stronger than swarmlings but weaker than the individual Wanderers. The bolt barely did anything more than melt its outer rocky carapace, however, so he had to follow it up with another bolt, which hit the thing directly at the same spot. This time, his attack penetrated and burned its insides and the creature dropped to the ground.

These things were bipedal and barely as tall as a man. Their bodies looked to be coated in rocky shale, but they bled crimson blood all the same. Only when the damage wasn’t cauterized first anyway.

When the scouts came running back an hour earlier, Riley had been prepared for the worst. Thankfully, it wasn’t that bad, though the scouts swore that they’d seen something far worse than these critters.

But, he hasn’t seen any of it. Where were these creatures coming from anyway? And from how they didn’t leave Chaos shards upon death, he actually wondered if these things were really Wyldlings.

A head-sized ball of plasma flew over his head and engulfed a couple of the stone-skinned things, melting them to slag. Aidan drew back the remnant plasma and had them spinning around his gauntlets. Riley stared up at the ceiling, noting that it reflected the night skies now, but parts of the cavern shone through the Chaos flows and the nearly Full Moon.

Riley took aim and shot another stoneskin, although this time, he used enough Animus to penetrate and kill. He was running out of Animus, however, and from the look of things, it was about time to retreat.

The stone-skinned came from the centre of the underground city. Well, ruins would be a more appropriate term, considering that more than half of all the buildings were just about to fall apart.

The strange thing was, the stone-skinned stopped coming after a certain point. Well, as long as none of them was within sight anyway. It wasn’t hard considering how the area looked like a maze.

After they were safe from attack, Riley looked for the scout leader, a middle-aged woman named Farah Demane. He found her along with the other scouts, and the rest of the crew members, around a small campfire and already cooking that noxious mix called a ration bar stew.

The dark-haired marine scout was sitting next to the fire, stirring the pot, and sniffling. Riley could see Aunt Layla scribbling furiously on her notes. The campsite would have been inside a building, except the roof and most of the walls were gone. Now, there was just a depression in the middle, as well as a few pillars and piled-up bricks that concealed them from easy sight.

Aidan headed straight for the supplies dump, where he fiddled around until he found a flask of spirits. He popped the cap, took a swig, and staggered until he managed to take a seat on the edge. The regular marines took one look at him, recognized him as a Knight, nodded respectfully, then went back to their tasks.

Of the three Chaos ships, there had been fifty marines each, and two of the members should be full Knights. However, not everyone made it here. There was only a single Knight from the Shattering Spear and the Willow Reaper, and both of them frowned at Aidan’s excess. Not that Riley blamed them. His elder brother had taken to the liquor of late. Much like Aunt Layla, really.

There were a hundred and twenty-four survivors. About a hundred marines, only four ship officers, including Aunt Layla, and twenty regular crew members. That out of roughly nearly two hundred brave men and women.

“Demane,” Riley called out to the scout as he sat a couple of paces beside her. The ration bar stew was in its purest form, plain ration bars and water, no spices. It didn’t look like anyone had spice. Ouch.

The woman looked at him and gave a casual salute. She wasn’t from the Sullen Striker and wasn’t under his command, but he was still above her in the hierarchy hence, compelled to answer.

“What did you see?” he finally said.

Demane shuddered and grasped at her condenser canteen convulsively. She popped the cap and drank deeply, water spilling out from the corner of her lips. Only after she swallowed did she answer, “I don’t know.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t know. I…I don’t remember. Only…only, I still feel it. Terror. Hunger.”

“A mental effect?” Riley muttered.

There were few Heritages within the Empire that had such powers, and his cousin Yuriko’s clan was one such. The Mishala was more well known for their charm and, well, their hedonistic mien, but he knew that they could just as easily invoke other emotions. The few clans that had similar Heritages were…well, either pruned or brought under the Mishala Clan’s banner. Or the Empress brought them into her personal auspices and then…well, nothing. They either changed their Heritages through the next generations or joined one of the Empire’s other services.

The point being that Heritages with a mental aspect were rare away from Realmheart. Although most community leaders have some Animus techniques to help control crowds. This also meant that for most Imperials, they weren’t all that used to fighting off mental influences or even recognising them. Which was really the point. Imperial techniques were subtle enough that they could barely be recognised. What Demane encountered was far from subtle, and Riley was frightened too.

He felt his pulse quicken, and his forehead broke out in cold sweat. And while he wallowed in his worries, scout Demane took a deep, deep breath, focused back on the pot, and seemed to forget what it was she…talked…about.

What?

What were they talking about? Riley scratched his chin. Out of the corner of his eyes, he thought he saw…butterflies? Down here, in the caverns? In the ruins of a city? With nary a stalk of grass, or flowers, why would there be…

Riley wrinkled his nose and scrubbed his chin. Ah. Ration bar stew. Urk. No spices. Dinner would be served in a few minutes and he had to say, that he wasn’t looking forward to the meals at all. Looks like Aidan had the right idea in drowning himself in liquor!

___________

The crystal screen’s display changed from Old Imperial words into a map of sorts. Yuriko had to stare at the circle and varied coloured dots before she realised that it was supposed to be the city, Cerkala. The name rolled oddly on her tongue, bringing to mind that it had a meaning behind it. The name itself wasn’t quite Old Imperial, or perhaps it was, but an odd variation or something.

The circle representation wasn’t that accurate as she was certain Cerkala wasn’t perfectly round. She noted the green blinking dot off-centre and focused on the cloud of red. The intrusion the screen indicated? It could only mean the Femorants.

The lines depicting the city and the structures within were a faded grey. There were smaller circles within the boundary, and she assumed those to be the pillars. The cloud of red wasn’t focused around the central pillar, but just a bit northeast of it.

“There’s another circle there,” she muttered. That one was bigger and wasn’t quite so perfectly round. Yuriko frowned. When every other circle was drawn even, why would there be one that wasn’t? It would certainly be more important than the others.

She stared at the display for a few seconds, before she heard Saki running into the chamber.

“Young mistress!”

“Hmm?” Yuriko turned away, and as soon as the stream of Animus ceased, the crystal screen’s display began to fade. “What is it?”

Saki's face looked worried, and she said, “I saw someone fighting through the antmen, headed directly to the tower base. I think it’s Heron.”

“Huh?” Yuriko grunted, Why would he head over here? Danger? “Let’s go see.”

Saki pulled Yuriko along, and they headed towards the doorway that led outside. She didn’t expect it, but it also led to a spiralling ramp, except this one had been carved into the rock rather than tacked on, and it had guard walls too, which meant that the ramps hadn’t been visible at all from below.

The walls were barely chest high to her, and Saki pulled her along until they circled the pillar and faced the opposite direction. Her Shadow Guard leaned over the wall and pointed. Yuriko activated Enhanced Sight and looked.

Yup. It was Heron alright. Why was he…? Yuriko frowned. He had slammed into a wall of antmen and was decimating them. He went for the killing blows even if doing so would open him to taking hits, too. She watched him for a few moments, while he slaughtered a dozen normal Femorants. He avoided the bulkier warrior ants if he could, but chose to engage if he had to detour too far. This…wasn’t typical behaviour for him, and she felt his desperation even from all the way up here.

“Bring the others down,” Yuriko said as she leapt on top of the wall.

“Young mistress!” Saki grabbed Yuriko’s ankle, concern clear on her face.

“Something’s wrong,” Yuriko said decisively and used her Animakinesis to repel Saki’s grip. “Follow as soon as you can.”

With those words, she leaned over the wall until her head was oriented downwards. She could have simply jumped and let herself fall, but Heron was slowly getting surrounded. He could fight them off for a bit longer, probably, but she could see more of the bulkier ants closing in. The initial tide that had washed up the square after she and the others went inside would catch up to him soon.

So, instead of jumping and falling, she faced the ground and propelled herself forward with a full-powered jump. She shaped her Anima to allow her to cut through the air easily, as well as boost her physical jump. In the blink of an eye, her face was less than a pace from the ground, and she flipped over and landed on her feet. The force of her landing was spread out across several paces instead of focused on one point, which meant she didn’t make a crater. And her landing was almost silent. So quiet that the Femorants not facing her didn’t even notice she arrived.

Until her sunshards reaped their lives away.

Fri’Avgi materialised in her hands, and she immediately used her sword dances, with the third dance in ascendance. The jagged golden blade extended the artefact’s reach by a couple of inches, and she dashed towards her friend, cutting everything in her path in the process. A couple of dozen more sunshards cleared her sides and back, and she drew her Arclight Sword from its sheath, wielding it with her right hand. The greatsword artefact was held in her left, and while she spun in a circle, she blasted out a couple of arclights to chop down the bigger ants.

In a couple of seconds, a circle nearly twenty paces across was absent of living Femorants. Heron’s current foe had just received a stab to the eye and collapsed. It took him a long moment to realise that there weren’t any other antmen in his vicinity, and his worried eyes lit up when he saw her.

“Yuri! Thank the Ancestors!”

“What happened? Is it the camp?” Yuriko asked, his anxiety was contagious.

“No. Not there. It’s…Orrin and Asami…we were scouting, and then we were attacked by variant ants.” He gasped. His Anima was cracked in several places, and it looked like his Animus Armour had faded away. His poncho was filled with tears, and dark blood had soaked his undershirt.

“Where are they?” Yuriko demanded, fearing the worst.

“The ants captured them,” Heron said hastily. “They were carried towards the centre.”

“Captured?” Yuriko’s mind blanked out.

The antmen were mindless anathema beasts, weren’t they? They had the capacity to capture people? Or was it that the two were captured alive simply to keep the food fresh? There was no time to lose. Heron babbled a few details that she absently took note of, while her mind was awhirl.

She stared at Heron’s condition for a long moment and decided that he couldn’t help her further. But she couldn’t leave him alone now. Her Animakinesis grabbed him and she launched the two of them towards the tower’s ramp, which was clear of antmen. How long that would continue, she didn’t know, but she couldn’t leave him to die either.

“Run up towards the middle. Gwen, Saki, and Kassy are there. I’ll go get them,” Yuriko growled. “Go!”

She barely noticed Heron’s acknowledgement as she jumped right back into the fray.