The fighting wore on until twilight. Axel Voight was huddled behind hasty fortifications while the Richmondian soldiers fired shots towards the wall every few seconds. He’d been observing the riflemen’s bullet reserves and he wondered if there would be enough to last the rest of the battle.

The capabilities of the witch and her fiends was unknown, but with the copious amount of occult resonance still extant, he wasn’t counting on them running dry anytime soon. The artillerists only lobbed a single mortar bomb every half hour or so, to keep them on their toes, and initial reconnaissance indicated that the witch had holed up underneath a particularly robust oak tree. The incendiaries had failed to burn it down, though Axel spotted a few licks of flame after every attempt. They inexplicably died however, and were soon accompanied by a puff of mist. Strange.

Still, the encirclement had been completed. There was a squad of riflemen to the ruin’s east and west, leaving only the south, with its sheer cliff left as the final barrier. For the past couple of hours, the witch had not fired back, so Dussel had commanded a slow crawl to secure a better position.

“Here, have some food.” Dussel sat down next to Axel and handed him some victuals. He absently nibbled on the jerky, slowly softening it up with spit before breaking off a piece.

“What I’d give for a cup of coffee…” Axel muttered.

“Too early to sleep yet,” Dussel snorted. “Too early for us grunts anyway. You Warlocks aren’t allowed Wakers, are you?” He proffered a small circular tablet. “This’ll keep you up all night. Combat ready and alert for anything that’ll come your way.” Dussel snorted and put it back into the tin it came from.

“Yeah, I can’t. Stuff like that will make it harder to use occult resonance,” Axel said. “I’m better off taking a nap every couple of hours. But hey,” He looked towards the ruin, “the occult resonance there is fading.”

“You think we should press the attack? The darkness isn’t going to help. And it looks like they’ve a bunker to retreat to.”

“I guess we’re waiting for reinforcements.” They just had to make sure that the witch doesn’t slip away in the middle of the night.

____________

The strangely shaped metal thing hovered in front of Yuriko. Her Anima perception had easily penetrated through its outer shell, and she found it was mostly made out of a mix of metals, and powders. She caught this one before it struck the ground and exploded.

The most puzzling thing was that it was completely devoid of runescript lines, Animus, or Chaos. Yet it could still explode and scatter sharp bits of metal and had the same penetrating power as when she threw pebbles with her Animakinesis. That was to say that if could be stopped cold with a Protective Field.

Unfortunately, the Field technique cost Animus to keep active, even if it varied between one to three lumens a minute. It required about half of one’s reserve to activate, otherwise there wouldn’t be enough Animus to cover the body and the area around it. Afterwards, Animus was depleted as time passed or when attacked.

If one were caught within a few paces of the thing exploding and their Field was depleted by three or four lumens. If they had been back in Rumiga, or really, any plane where it was at one iarvesh, a loss of three to four lumens against an attack like that was minor. Here…when it would take Orrin, Braden, or Asami, nearly six hours of meditation or sleep to recover a single lumen…

Part of the oblong device was empty. More powder of some kind, she supposed. She didn’t know how those people used weapons without a single lumen of Animus. It was at the level of a nuisance to her, but these exploding things would still hurt if she didn’t have her condensed aura active.

She had half a mind to throw this thing back at them. Why were they so persistent? They were the ones to attack first. She hadn’t even done anything then! Well, she killed a few when they reached the plateau where the portal tunnels led out to…

She considered throwing caution to the winds and just wade into their formation and kill them where they stood…

Actually, if they didn’t stop trying to kill her and her friends, she was coming to that point soon. But then, she couldn’t understand what that man was yelling at her. And she didn’t want to be hasty. They were the outsiders here, and for all she knew, she and the others were trespassing on one of their sacred sites.

She couldn’t quite believe that though, and didn’t want to enact a massacre just yet. After all, none of them had been really hurt.

Where was Damien anyway? He hadn’t answered at all. Fri’Avgi was still asleep, and Desire was almost comatose. They had retreated into the tunnels when those people started using these explosive devices. As though the metal shooting things weren’t enough.

She couldn’t tell where those people’s exact positions were , or she’d have knocked them out by now. She also didn’t want to leave her friends alone for too long. Their limited Animus reserves meant that if they were exposed to those weapons directly, their reserves could empty in only a few seconds, and then they’d be helpless. And she couldn’t be everywhere.

As night once again fell, they retreated back into the tunnels. The metal arrows came from the north, east, and west, and strangely enough, they didn’t try to completely encircle them. The south was still open. She considered retreating that way, but she caught a glimpse of the landcrafters they used. Troop transports and a smaller landcraft that was bedecked with thick metal plates. She didn’t know how those would fare going up the hill, or through the mountainous terrain to the south, but there was still a relatively flat valley there, and if they openly fled, she was sure those warriors in brown coats would catch up quickly. And then they’d be exposed without cover.

So they had to leave without being seen. And early in the day, she, Asami, and Gwendith had worked out how to do it.

“Progress?” she asked when Asami walked up next to her.

The tall, green-haired girl rubbed her finger across her freckles and grunted delicately, “Mister Dorn’s managed to widen the tunnel enough so we can all make it through. It leads towards the middle of the cliff. An easy jump.”

Boom!

She flinched when another of the explosive canisters slammed into the courtyard. The burst of flame and shrapnel bounced off Yuriko’s Anima, though it did cause the already dry tree trunk to catch fire. Again.

Yuriko smothered it by throwing sand and dirt on the open flames. Gwendith would have done it faster and easier, but even exercising Ennoias had a minor Animus expenditure. It was minute enough that it was negligible, but not here.

They’d only been here a day and she was already tired of the conditions here in Siderious. She could make the case that training for efficiency in these circumstances was a good thing, but…well, she didn’t know how long it would take for Firehead’s former master to take over Rumiga. With Finan there, as well as the Legion Agminis… Well, her intuition was still telling her that she didn’t have much time. More than she thought of, actually, but far less than was good. So, she couldn’t dawdle here. She had to find what it was that her instincts were pushing her too, and find the Warforged too!

Now those warriors…

She frowned at the explosive canister…if she invested this thing with Animus or Radiant energy, she was sure it would be able to cut through Chaos and Animus protections. Those Plasma Caster lookalikes, too…investing Animus into the steel arrows would do the same, and at the rate they were using the weapons was faster than with Plasma Casters. She was curious and intrigued with the possibilities…so perhaps she should bring some of those things back, too.

Was that why her intuition brought her here?

Asami stood beside her for a long while, jumping every now and then when another incendiary fell on the courtyard. The rate of attacks from the warriors had lessened, but had not stopped. And Saki reported earlier that they were digging trenches too. They didn’t seem to have earthmelders…

In fact, Chaos Sight only showed her two people within the entire group with a glimmer of Animus. The amount they used was so little that if not for the nearly barren atmosphere, she wouldn’t have noticed them at all.

Bang! Bang!

The frustrating little metal arrows came once again. They struck the trees, the side of the building, and the dirt. Growling in annoyance, Yuriko poked her head out of the tunnel, turning to look at where the things came from.

Bang! Bang!

Eh?

There were little flashes of light on the hillside, which appeared just before the explosive sounds. The metal arrows struck first, of course, and one even ricocheted off a pebble and slammed into her thigh. Thankfully, it was stopped cold by her aura. She’d adjusted how she built her condensed aura after the first time one of them bounced off her and hit one of the marines. Now, she added a soft layer that was about a couple of inches thick. It absorbed the kinetic impact and was backed by a thicker, and stiff layer underneath. The downside was that it was really obvious as it was shedding as much light as a campfire.

But those flashes of light…were they from the weapons?

Another set of flashes bloomed in the looming twilight. The skies were getting darker and darker, and without the Chaos flows, it was much harder to see. Yuriko readied herself to activate Enhanced Sight, which did compensate for the lacking brightness.

Bang!

This time, she launched herself directly at the flash. The metal arrow crumpled right in front of her bosom, but a moment later, she was right up to the warrior, who was gaping at her. There were two of them, and the second one immediately oriented his weapon at her, pulled the trigger, and bang!

The projectile didn’t even make her flinch as it flattened against her thigh. The warriors gasped in fear, began blubbering in tears, and tried to get up from their prone position. They were so slow…

She flicked one of them on the forehead. His head snapped backwards and his eyes rolled up as he lost consciousness. His partner screamed in terror or anger, but either way, it only took another flick to knock him unconscious. Then, she picked both of them up by their belts, including all of their gear, and jumped back towards shelter.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Wheee! Boom!

Her attack had not gone unnoticed and the ones in the west and north attacked without holding back. One of the metal arrows would have struck the prisoner on her right had she not protected him with her Anima. Then, she was inside the tunnel with her prize.

Asami raised an eyebrow and said, “Good job, I guess. Are you going to charm them into spilling out all they know?”

Yuriko coloured and muttered, “Only if we can understand them. I’m mainly interested in their weapons.”

“Urg…”

One of them woke up. His eyes twitched wildly, then centered on Yuriko. He mouthed a few words she couldn’t understand, then his hands darted towards his belt. He didn’t go for the knife, which was why Yuriko didn’t do anything. Instead, he fumbled with a stick which had a cylinder on the end. His trembling hands uncapped the bottom of it, which revealed a string. He grabbed it and pulled hard, then threw the thing at her while scrambling away.

Yuriko caught it by the cylinder, her Anima perception already penetrating into the material. There was something on fire inside, as well as a bunch of powder that was practically identical to the one inside the incendiary device…

“Oh.”

Fwooomh! Booom!

The thing exploded in her had. The metal canister shattered and filled the area with shrapnel…or it would have if Yuriko’s aura didn’t stop it. As it were, the thing actually caused a tiny fracture in her condensed Anima around her hand, but did little else.

The warrior gaped at her, then fainted dead away.

Yuriko exchanged glances with Asami and shrugged. “Well, let’s grab all of these and let’s get going. They’re a bit of a bother, aren’t they?” Yuriko muttered.

“Yeah. Are we leaving tonight?”

“Yes.”

Asami grinned and helped Yuriko with the metal weapons. The two of them nearly stripped the two warriors of their gear, but left them with their dignity. Then, she tossed both of them out across the courtyard and left them to their fate.