The budget for the mission was five hundred thousand Sovereigns. It sounded like a lot, but when Yuriko looked at the equipment menu and saw the prices there, it was apparent that it was not. The spatially expanded backpack that could carry three cubic paces inside already cost a hundred thousand! The expanded hip satchel with a cubic pace of space inside it was twenty-five thousand Sovies.

The smaller backpacks that could carry a cubic pace inside cost about twenty thousand. While hip satchels that carry about a fifth of a cubic pace cost about ten thousand.

Hmmm, only the backpacks and hip satchels really interested her. Carrying things around had always been the issue during her adventures. She looked at the backpack’s runescript weaving and confirmed that they had the same ones as her traveller’s pack. Self-cleaning, laundry, and spatial expansion. It drew in ambient Chaos to power the weaving, but there were also jade buttons that could hold Animus in case they wound up in a low iarvesh area. The same was the case for the hip satchel, but instead of laundry, it had preservation weaving. It also came with vials, and canteens, which could be switched from condenser or purifier mode.

“Are you buying the backpack?” Gwendith asked.

“Yes,” Yuriko decided. The weapons and most of the other equipment she didn’t really need.

“Hmmm, I’m looking at the regeneration stones and healing cubes.” Gwendith muttered, “They’re limited to about three uses, but they should be useful even if we don’t use them.”

“How much?” Yuriko muttered as she browsed the menu. The healing cube cost about a thousand Sovies for the basic, one-time use version. The next one above that cost three thousand and could be used twice. The description didn’t tell her how effective the cube would be, but it suddenly occurred to Yuriko that it might teach her how to heal others. Or failing that, how to make healing cubes!

The three-use version cost about six thousand Sovies, and since she was going to buy the bigger backpack and hip satchel, space wasn’t much of an issue. The one-use healing cube was a cubic inch, but so were the others. She bought three one-use and one double-use cubes.

The regeneration cubes could be filled with Animus, either from ambient Chaos or refilled from personal Animus. They were horrifically expensive, however, and the one with the lowest capacity and slowest recharge rate cost nearly as much as the hip satchel. Still, the others took one each, a more modest backpack that was of the same calibre as Yuriko’s older one.

“You can have my old one,” Yuriko said to Gwendith when she was about to choose the backpack.

“Oh, thanks!”

“It’ll save us coins,” Yuriko answered. They had a bit less than two hundred thousand left on the budget and she wanted to hold fifty gold marks as a reserve, leaving them a bit less than one fifty thousand.

The others bought supplies, tools, and some backup weapons. Gwendith and Heron still had their Light Infantry Armour, which was stored in their luggage. They weren’t exactly meant to be worn while exploring a city.

Supplies were also a major issue, and the ration bar fabricator Finan lent then had already been returned. Well, the reason she bought a large backpack was to carry more rations! And with all the space she had, she had more than enough ration bars to feed all of them for a year. Er, maybe two if they supplement with hunting and foraging.

The ration bars were cheap, and she got the entire bundle at a steep discount, too. By the time everyone finished, she actually had a bit more left over than she expected. Still, she could only draw fifty gold marks at most, and once she received the coin purse, she gave the others a couple of gold marks each for emergencies.

Afterwards, it was off to the Imperial Bank to adjust her account and get some change. That took the rest of the afternoon and they were given the address of a nearby hostel to spend the night in.

The next day, Gwendith, Heron, Devotee, and Ryoko headed back to Legion Command’s logistics office to pick up their purchased equipment while Yuriko, Desire, and Saki headed towards the transportation department. They were allowed to requisition a Chaos ship, though the class specified was something Yuriko didn’t recognise, a sloop.

Anyway, when she gave the attendant the papers, she was given a black cube in return. Etched on it were numbers and letters, as well as a runescript line that showed an image of the vessel when she infused it with Animus. The image showed a wooden ship with a single mast and a single thruster at the aft. It had a shallow draft and was narrow, built for speed.

“The Wind Darter is a fast ship,” the attendant said with a slight smile. “She doesn’t have a high-capacity Animus engine, but her configuration allows her to efficiently accept Animus from her crew. Knight-Captain Davar, with your power, you’ll be able to cross Waypoints half as fast as a normal ship!”

“Oh, that’s good.” Yuriko nodded. Still, she barely knew anything about sailing in the Chaos Sea, and she said, “I’m not a sailor, so I’m not really sure how well we’ll be able to use the Wind Darter.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Oh, no worries ma’am,” the young man said. “The Darter’s control board is intuitively easy. It’s a small ship, and anyone can pilot it as long as the keycube is installed.”

And with how the Chaos Sea works, as long as Yuriko kept their destination in mind, they’ll get there. Eventually.

The sloop wasn’t docked at the same area the Fortuitous Stone was berthed, but at another district farther south. She and the others waited for the other group by the main lobby. Yuriko sat down on a couch and settled for a quick meditation session. She was nudged awake by Saki when Gwendith, Heron, Devotee, and Ryoko arrived with the goods. Ryoko handed Yuriko her new backpack and satchel.

They made their way to the Riverfront Delta District where the Wind Darter was berthed. The Levi-Tram ride took about a couple of hours to get there, mainly because it went through a circuitous route.

Docking bay twenty-seven-three was identical to thousands of others. It was a smallish warehouse space that was barely big enough to house the sloop. The keycube opened the gate, and Yuriko inspected the Chaos ship using her perception. It was dusty and the Chaos catcher sails had a few holes, but nothing that could really impact their flying speed.

The hull was flat-bottomed, allowing it to rest on the ground without special struts or mounts. The visible runescript lines looked undamaged, though there was a bit of wear. The log inside the pilot’s cabin told her that the Darter’s last voyage had been a year ago, where it took some damage from blockade running. Not during the Rumigan War, but from the border between the Empire and the Coalition. The sloop had been repaired but then left to languish in its storage berth.

A quick inspection of the interior showed only a couple of rooms. The captain’s quarters, and the crew rest area. Both were about the same size, but Yuriko wasn’t about to force six people to squeeze into the same space. Each room could comfortably fit three people.

“We’ll sail in two groups.” Yuriko decided.

“Who’s first?” Heron asked.

“I’ll take the first, pick amongst yourselves who takes the same shift as I and who takes the second.”

She ignored the silent confrontation and continued her inspection. The Animus engines could barely output enough denatured Animus to sustain the Protective Sphere so it would have to be supplemented by her Animus or the crew’s when they entered the Sea.

Once she was convinced that everything was in order, she let Gwendith double-check the engine and the runescript weaving. Yuriko looked at the other two rooms, the galley and the hold. The former was more a kitchen than a dining space, with barely enough room for the stoves, pots, pans, and sink. The cargo hold could fit all of their gear but wasn’t that much larger than the two rooms combined. There was only a single lavatory and bath. It was a cosy space but was probably meant for a team of five and crew rather than a full ten-person squad.

“All good here,” Gwendith said.

“Master, we can help shield the ship when in the Sea,” Devotee offered. “Don’t worry about the lack of capacity.”

“I’m not, but thank you,” Yuriko said.

With everything settled, the others boarded and Yuriko took the helm and activated the Animus engine. The steering spheres had built-in Animus absorbers and since Yuriko had an excess, she channeled hundreds of Animus a second into the capacitors. The runescript lines at the bottom of the hull provided lift, and the thruster at the back propelled them out of the warehouse. She didn’t have the retractable mast and sail deployed since those were only good once they were at Sea.

Gwendith manned the communications array and transmitted their intentions towards the control tower. Once they received the all-clear, Yuriko pushed the Darter towards the same Chaos Channel they entered the plane from.

The flight took about three-quarters of the time the Stone took, and by the time it was noon, they had reached the Channel. Gwendith relayed their intentions to the Channel’s control center and they fell in line with other Chaos ships leaving Delovine. It took half an hour’s wait before they were able to exit.

Once they were outside the plane, the Protective Sphere activated, taking up almost all of the engine’s output to maintain it. The little leftover allowed them nominal thrust. There, Yuriko deployed the mast and sails, which upped the Animus production twofold. This allowed normal operations without having to draw Animus from her.

But, she wasn’t in the mood to dawdle, so she channelled as much Animus as she could produce and they accelerated away from Delovine’s zone of control quickly.

The Bella plane wasn’t in the vicinity of Rumiga or Delovine. It was actually at the ‘northern border’, though the designation wasn’t always correct. The planes tethered into the Empire stayed at a relative distance and orientation with each other, but the entire block of planes that comprised the Eternal Empire tended to spin and rotate randomly, as well as drift with the Chaos currents. The only reason the Xylarchy and the Coalition remained in proximity was the handful of contested planes between the Empire and each nation.

And the reason the other two great nations weren’t fighting each other as much is because they shared a few contended planes.

‘If the Empire gave up on some frontiers, we could actually drift away from our foes,’ Yuriko thought idly.

The coordinates of Bella plane, which were really an estimate of how many Waypoints were between that plane and one of the Empire’s indicated that there were at least a hundred Waypoints if they travelled around the Empire’s territory. But if she went away from the established shipping lanes and into deeper Chaos, it should only take twenty Waypoints. Of course, she wasn’t going to waste a hundred days of travel, so they diverged from the Waypoint trail that would lead back to Rumiga.

Yuriko’s memories of Bella weren’t all that clear, but the most distinct feature of that plane to her was the fact that it was merged with another plane, Kogasi. That should be enough of an identifier, right?

Either way, with the idea of a conjoined Bella and Kogasi foremost in her mind, she steered the Chaos ship away from Imperial territory and pushed on.

The rest of the day wasn’t remarkable. They reached Waypoint, bypassed it, and pressed on. At the second Waypoint, they stopped to rest. One thing that Yuriko forgot was that since she was the only one who had been to Bella and Kogasi, she was the only one who could navigate!

So they entered Waypoints when she needed to rest and let the others fly the ship. Bypassing Waypoints and going through them took roughly the same amount of time, with the former taking more Will and focus than the latter.

By the fourth day, they’d settled into a nice routine. The Waypoints they entered didn’t contain any dangerous foes, so they were rather relaxed. But when they exited that Fysalli, the entire region of the Chaos Sea was covered in a violent storm.