Orrin’s antennae were laid flat against the top of his head, and if it weren’t for Yuriko’s perception aura, she would have missed it within the tangled mop of blonde hair. As it were, she only saw them after she cleared the gunk off his head. Feeling more than a little trepidation, she cleared off the rest of it from his body and found that small parts of his skin across his arms and legs had turned to chitin.

They looked like scabs, actually, and she couldn’t help picking on them. The way the edges simply fused into his skin was disturbing in how seamless they were. And the antennae…

There were two, of course, and similar to what the Femorants had except for a few minor differences in the shape of the tip, and the colour. Yuriko’s perception aura could examine the extra organs thoroughly, but she couldn’t help but caress them with her fingers. They were covered in thin chitin, flexible, and seemed to be sensitive considering how they twitched away from her touch. Orrin groaned unconsciously.

At the moment, they had been slicked back into his hair, which made them practically invisible save for the base. They started an inch or so above his eyebrows and stuck out of his forehead. Other than the antennae and the bits of chitin instead of skin, he appeared relatively fine. Hopefully, he'll wake up soon.

A thorough examination of Asami revealed no anomalies, but exposure to the pure Chaos of the lake would have done something. She hoped that Gwen’s cousin weathered through it unscathed. There was no way to know if any changes happened with her Anima or Animus, not without an invasive examination that Yuriko was not willing to do without consent.

So she went about preparing the campsite. She only had her hip satchel, which contained the Ambrosia, a condenser canteen, and a week’s supply of ration bars. Split five ways that would last only about a couple of days, but they could stretch that out to a week if they went on short rations. Three weeks probably if they only ate until they reached the limit, but Yuriko knew that would be a death sentence since they had to move. As a last resort, she could probably hunt for something to eat. There’s no shortage of critters in the underground after all. Ick.

Having freshly made ration bar stew would be good for them, though. So she looked around for something to turn into a pot, before realising a few minutes later that whatever pots or pans were here before were now nothing more than fragments. She stared at the stone for a long moment, wondering if she could carve a pot out of it, but decided that doing so would take too much time, or would be too bulky and uneven to be of use. Instead, she turned to creating Animus constructs.

There was a point when such constructs became real and permanent, but after managing to create sunblades and sunshards, she had barely experimented with making them. That had been shortsighted, not that she’d thought about it. Making constructs would have meant having less to carry.

She began by spinning out threads of Animus. Each one was finer than string, and she had to weave them together to make thicker strings. She then spun and twisted them around each other until she had the makings of a woven basket. At that point, it was only a matter of repetition until she had an acceptable-sized pot. Except, when she poured water into it, there were so many leaks that it was like trying to keep water in her palm and fingers.

Next, she tried making a sheet, bending it until it made a square pot. That seemed to work, even if the square turned out to be a crumpled mess, with dozens of folds and nooks inside. It held water though, and she felt that as long as she fed it Animus every now and then, the construct would sustain itself. The final touch was imparting her Intent into it, allowing it to maintain its purpose rather than doing what nature intended, which was to disperse into its constituent lumens.

Happy with her results, she filled it with water and plopped a sunshard inside the pot, which boiled all of the water out in seconds, before igniting the Animus construct and burning it to ashes.

“Rotter,” Yuriko muttered.

The Animus construct, once it had been imparted with Intent, was no longer connected to her, hence, no longer immune to her Radiant energy. She’d either need to soften the sunshard’s heat or actually build a fire. So much for that shortcut.

Still, she managed to make another pot, this one with half as many wrinkles as the first one. Then, she wrote a campfire runescript weaving on the ground and sparked it with some Animus. The Animus gathering runescript should handle the constant consumption.

Once the water was boiling, she plopped a couple of ration bars into it and stirred until it turned into a thin porridge. As with any ration bar recipe unenhanced by spices, it smelled bland and was tasteless.

She formed bowls while she waited for the stew to be ready, and by the time she’d made three, Asami woke up screaming.

“Shhh…”

Yuriko covered the other girl’s mouth, but her voice had already burst out. It echoed inside between the walls briefly before fading away.

“Hmmmph!” Asami’s eyes were wild but upon recognising Yuriko, she calmed down gradually.

“You’re safe. We’ve escaped,” Yuriko murmured soothingly, and Asami shuddered and flung herself into Yuriko’s arms.

“...scared. Hurts…” she sobbed.

“It’s alright now.”

Yuriko patted Asami’s back a bit awkwardly and weathered her crying. In the meantime, she managed to complete the set of bowls and utensils and placed them next to the campfire. They should last about an hour or so, just enough time for them to eat, before fading away. Well, if the others weren’t awake yet, she could simply infuse more Animus, or she could build better ones later. She formed a ladle and scooped up some of the ration bar porridge before she offered it to Asami.

“Thanks…” Asami sniffled, seeming to find comfort in the warm food. The caverns and the underground weren't cold, but neither was it warm. There was a wind though, which blew from the direction of the deeper tunnels. They were warm early in the day, and cold at night. Ah, the winds blew from the upper tunnels instead, by that time. But most times, the difference between warm and cool winds was barely discernible, and what may be warm winds in one cavern could be cold in another. It didn’t matter where the caverns or tunnels were relative to one another too, which was why the winds and temperature had not been a factor in determining where they were.

Yuriko thought that there must be an underlying rule regarding wind temperature, direction, and distance from the surface, but it was so complicated that she got a headache just trying to think about it. Oh well, idle thoughts.

Asami calmed down after gulping down the porridge, frowning as usual at the taste. She groped at her own hip satchel and heaved a sigh of relief when she found most of her things in it. She glanced at Orrin, eyes widening at his antennae, then looked at the other two men.

“Who’re they?”

“That one with the long ears is Faeril Trafarren Sorren’ir. I don’t know the other, but both of them are from a resort in Synkrasia,” Yuriko answered. “And I hope to find out what happened from Faeril once he awakens.”

“They look alright…”

Yuriko shook her head. “I helped them along. They were mostly skin and bones when I found them.”

Asami’s eyebrows rose to her hairline. “I can’t imagine what you did to help them recover.”

Yuriko just shrugged and Asami didn’t push. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and shuddered.

There was little Yuriko could do other than comfort the other girl, other than be a warm body next to her.

Asami settled down after a while, and it was at that point that Orrin startled awake. His eyes were just as wild, and he looked as though he could scarcely believe he was alive. He gasped and turned in Yuriko’s direction, stared at her for a long moment while his antennae twitched cutely. Then, for some strange reason, his face turned red.

“You’ve Changed,” Asami said slowly while her eyes followed the tips of Orrin’s bobbing antennae.

“I know.” Orrin coughed. “I could smell your concern.”

“Smell?”

The antennae dipped until the tips were right in front of his eyes. He looked sourly at them, then grabbed and pulled, as though he wanted to rip them off his head. In less than a second, he squeaked in pain and released the offending organs.

“They’re part of you now,” Asami said. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he said sourly. “Well, at least nobody would confuse Braden and I now.”

Yuriko raised an eyebrow. “But it’s easy to tell you two apart.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, downcast. “I…” He turned to face her again, and his antennae continued twitching. “You’re hard to ignore.”

Yuriko grinned and shrugged.

After she repeated what she said to Asami about the Hollowers, she gave him a bowl of ration bar porridge that he devoured.

“How many bars do the two of you have?” Yuriko asked.

“A couple of days’ worth,” Orrin answered.

“A whole week,” Asami said.

“Oh, good. That’ll stretch us out,” Yuriko said.

“Where are we?” Asami asked.

“I don’t know. We’re not in Cerkala,” Yuriko said. “That’s what the city we reached is called. We wound up here after escaping the Chaos lake.” She took a deep breath, “The Femorant Queen is at the Knight Commander level.”

“What?!” both exclaimed then Orrin said, “How did you manage to escape? And with all of us too!”

Yuriko shook her head. “The Ancient’s Way. It’s stronger than any other path, as far as I’ve seen, at the same level.”

Asami frowned. “Then why hasn’t everyone walked on it?”

“Balance.” Orrin shook his head. “To be so powerful, the requirements and dangers must be equally high.” He shuddered. “Just the ones you described make me shiver.”

“Eh?” Asami looked confused, and Orrin mentioned Yuriko's offer to the twins. “Interesting.” She looked at Yuriko for a long moment, then sighed. “Abandoning the Heritage is the hardest thing to swallow.”

Yuriko nodded. “True. But my Heritage was incomplete.”

“Anyway, I don’t think it’s as simple as you fighting two levels above you.”

“Of course not,” Yuriko grunted. “The queen was strong, but couldn’t move much. If not for that…”

“Ah.”

Little else was said, and the three of them tried to relax. They were cut off from the others, and Yuriko worried about their safety. Orrin looked thoughtful then he pointed towards a wall opposite the dwelling’s door. “Braden is over that way.”

“Not up or down?” Yuriko asked.

“Nope. Directly that way.”

Yuriko nodded. “I’ll need to scout a path then.”

“We’ll stay here?” Orrin asked.

Yuriko glanced at Faeril and the other man, “You think it’ll be better for all of us to move?”

“‘Course not,” Orrin said, “but I don’t feel safe getting left behind either.” Asami nodded and shuddered.

“Ah, right.” Yuriko agreed. “I just want to get a better look at our surroundings. I won’t be long.”

“Please come back quickly.”

After nodding, Yuriko stared at the sleeping duo then the shelter. The tunnel winds had turned slightly colder, and a glance at the illusory patch in the ceiling showed the reflected Chaos flows.

She was a bit concerned with the noise they made, and upon leaving the ruined building, she heard clanging and clattering in the distance. The way this city was made somehow muffled the sounds that came from farther than a block away. Otherwise, any noise would have been amplified. They were in a large chamber after all.

She explored a radius of around fifty paces around their shelter. Most of the streets were covered with rubble and sinkholes, which exposed sewer lines underneath. There was a trickle of water, mostly clean according to her perception aura, that pooled next to rubble piles. Thanks to the illusory ceiling, Radiant light had given surface life a chance here. She saw straggly bits of grass growing between the cracks of the cobblestones. She saw more than enough small insects and lizards. She wasn’t sure what would be edible though, and hopefully, they wouldn’t have to scavenge.

She returned to camp satisfied that no threat was near, other than a potential Femorant assault anyway. And after a while, she set up a watch rotation with the other two then settled down to meditate and rest.