Liyuzhe stepped from her workshop, her arm still bleeding from things getting a little out of control earlier that morning. Heading for her private office, she took a seat with a fresh cup of tea, waiting for any good news.

“So, good news, you were right. The mansion her family had sold really did have a secret floorboard in the basement workshop, and there really was something left hidden behind. A tiny silly tome, actually, clearly Khyzae’s work. Just how did you predict that?” “Khyzae was always good at finding secrets, and she knew I loved digging for the secrets hidden underground. It’s like she’s left me a treasure hunt, spot after spot of places to look for more and more answers. She was always manipulative like that, moving people to places by her will.” “Well, the family that was living in her old home really didn’t like the intrusion, made things a little rough for me.” “Nothing you couldn’t handle, I’m sure. Now give me that tome, so we can see what else Khyzae has left for us.” Fhyernx passed Liyuzhe the tome had had recovered, taking note of her injuries in the process. Liyzhe was always like this, not letting a little harm get in the way of getting work done. Fhyernx sighed, this sort of thing was becoming maybe a bit too common.

“Maybe you should take it easy for a while. Ieqyisa and I can keep…” “You’ll keep an eye on things here for a while? Perfect, I’m going on a trip for a bit, it seems. Will have to return to the roots, find something I’ve probably been searching for. Hells, Khyzae can be so cryptic and convoluted sometimes, especially when she does that philosophical stuff.” “What?! You’re in no condition for such a thing! Where in hells is she sending you to…” “Look, I know you’re looking after me, but some things I need to do for myself. Besides, it would be a waste if we didn’t take this great opportunity to start field testing our work. Even Khyzae was saying that at around the time we got to this point, we would have to be ready to get everyone’s attention. You do have everything in order, right? Wouldn’t want to get caught off guard in the city when all the chaos broke out after all.” Fhyernx sighed, knowing Liyuzhe would not be backing down. Fortunately, Khyzae had also predicted the need for them to be prepared to deal with some pretty difficult situations, they had some of the best equipment imaginable, better honestly. His personal work, putting together some relics of a bygone day long ago, perfect for protecting his friends from danger.

“Fine then, but maybe you could get Ieqyisa to help you with the journey. She’s still out, but she would make it much safer than some of the old tunnels. While you're at it, bring some of the equipment I’ve been working on, it needs some proper field testing too.” “Yes, yes, Khyzae said that you guys would be important for this in her writing, too. Make sure you keep making progress though, we need to keep striving to improve on your creations. Basing all your stuff on something that had failed in the past shows that there was a known flaw, you need to make sure it’s flawless.” “Considering the old version couldn’t work at all the way it was originally designed, I’m pretty sure we’ve already fixed that just by making it work at all. But yes, keep improving, I know.” Fhyernx understood what Liyuzhe was referring too, already considering his own plans on the same subject.

“Speaking of working, do you even know what Ieqyisa has been up to the last several days? She’s suddenly became very absorbed in her work, getting ahold of her has become so much more difficult.” “Actually, not really. Said something about making progress in a matter relating to bringing Khyzae back to us, but that she didn’t want to share details until she had some conclusive evidence. Didn’t want to get our hopes up and everything.” “Leave her to that then, getting Khyzae back is way too important. Remember the reports we got recently, the thieves killed in city center by no visible cause whatsoever. I don’t know, something about hiding causes of death, denying all evidence, that just felt like Khyzae. She’s here somewhere, still as unstoppable as ever. I might have need of some of your own creations then, if you want me to cross the mountains without using the tunnels. Nothing too complicated, we all know some of your stuff has ended up a bit too complicated to make proper usage of.” Liyuzhe started to prepare for her own departure, leaving Fhyernx to make the required arrangements. On her way out, her cell suddenly rang.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting all this time. I’m still trying to put this whole thing together, but I’ve ran into a bit of a roadblock, wondering if you might have any ideas. Putting things together here, I don’t think Khyzae had been reluctant in her trip to the village, I think she had made it happen.” “Well, of course, that’s always like her. She always makes happen what she wants to have happen.” “Yes, but why, what made it matter? It’s just a small stupid village with a bunch of strange trees.” “The trees.. is that it? Oh Khyzae, why do you always make things so difficult…” “What? Did I miss something there?” “No, no, you’ve done probably exactly as Khyzae had predicted. I have no idea how she does it, but she’s so good at it. I expect that the answer for both of us is in the trees, the secret behind them. I would suggest doing research from that angle, see what you can turn up. I suspect my own journey might give us some answers, so I’ll let you know if I find out anything related.” “Wait, journey? Where are you off to?” “Ieqyisa, do you really think you’re the only one who spent effort trying to find our lost friend? She anticipated I might find need in following her footsteps, even left me a personal trail to follow. I suspect she knew you would be searching for her too, and is having such paths combine. Just don’t confuse the forest for the trees.” Ieqyisa was surprised at Liyuzhe cutting her off with such a cryptic closing. Clearly Liyuzhe had been learning some of the worst lessons from Khyzae.

Liyuzhe went to check out some of their spare supplies of wood for herself, deep in thought. This stuff was amazing in its pristine state, like the most perfect relaxant. Even channeling her gift through it opened up avenues of tranquility for her thoughts, like she could reach for even greater things in turn. Wood that instilled a sense of ambition, of defiance of its own limitations, in a calm state of serenity. Such a material had countless uses for her own goal, but it was true that she understood so little of how it worked, or why it did what it did. Return to the origins, look for the truth behind the scenes, maybe there was much more she could discover in the process. It was remarkable how much Khyzae was still influencing them, even in her absence. She could only assume that there were others snared in the same net of influence, still working towards her every prediction. Liyuzhe went over the letter left to her one more time before resuming her preparations for departure.

Having finished their review of the abandoned building, Riyxia ensured the place was at least secured again with some fair measure of security, not wanting the whole thing to be disturbed in their absence in consideration of it’s visible importance. Even having the place already looted, at least this way it wouldn’t suffer any worse. Riyxia brought the tome she found back to the shelter with her, visibly treasuring it. The three girls returned in silence, their thoughts still occupied on all of the related discoveries. On arrival, Ayzherie confronted them, clearly curious about any updates they might have.

“The place was already looted when we arrived, almost everything was gone.. everything except a letter that was left to me. It says that if I want to find what I’m looking for, I need to find where it could begin, and start on the other side of the Vesper Mountains. The letter says that by the time I read it, I should find a passage across the mountains conveniently prepared for me, I just need to ask the right person.” “Oh, about that, we managed to secure a transport to cross the mountains, I said we would be working on that while you were away. It might take several days for it to arrive though, so if you’re going that way you might need to be a bit patient. Maybe do some training in the meantime?” Riyxia was feeling especially haunted by this factor, still remembering Ayzherie having made that very decision earlier. It made it really easy to know who to ask, but left her shaken in that things were proving somehow this easy to predict. Her predecessor might have died, but somehow the actions she had left behind has formed a will of its own that continued her own ambitions even a year later. Riyxia herself felt like a puppet of Khyzae’s will, a concept not without considerable irony. It wasn’t even just her, her predictions seemed capable of puppetting people she hadn’t even met, such as Ayzherie.

Ayzherie herself needed to witness the line mentioning her own plan, predicted well in advance. That left her feeling well outplayed, having her actions predicted over a year in advance in that way. As an established tactician, that was no small feat. Ayzherie was still aware that a lot of that same person was still found within Riyxia, a potential she herself would have to be aware of in the future. More alarming though was the accounts presented of what was not found at the facility, the setup for equipment matching what was used to produce access to the Astral Flame somehow over a year before. That would require her attention, like a stolen superweapon. There was a chance that nothing was stolen, that the only copy of the equipment was the stuff left at the village, but even if there were only documentation.. the chances of it were enough to warrant some concern. Fortunately, even being prepared for such news, Riyxia’s predecessor wasn’t the only one who could tactically put things together in useful measures. Making use of such preparation was vital for obtaining their transportation, after all. Ayzherie would still need to ensure things panned out properly though, leaving the girls to commence some training already prepared as she went off to take care of things.

"Oh, Sis, bad timing. Love that you called, but work has me busy right now." "I've checked the news, I've seen you've been busy. I can't believe you, idiot." "Finding the latest success in innovation has left you that worried? Sure, the business for it is going to go places, so…" "No, you jerk, stop changing the subject. You even promised not to cause any trouble with your stupid reporting junk. You know not to go digging into our work, but you did it anyway, and now the whole city is growing paranoid." "No I didn't! I only had the innovation and a story on some rift crime going on. We actually just learned there was theft involved in..." "You idiot! I don't know what's worse, when you're a jerk on purpose or when you prove to be dense as a brick. Stop getting involved in things you don't even understand." Jwyexzn was surprised to find Ieqyisa hanging just as suddenly as she had called. His sister was impossible sometimes, it's why they didn't talk very often.

"Jwyexzn, are you paying any attention yet? Ayzherie makes this stuff challenging as is, I would hate to need to redo stuff because there weren't any records about it." "Oh, yeah, sorry. My sister called, she was throwing a fit about something. Seems she thinks I'm getting in her way or something." "Really? What does she do anyway?" "No idea. We both agreed to not really get involved in each other's work, been like that for a few years now. It was strange, we always used to do stuff together, but our professional goals and studies went in different directions when we grew up. She always wanted to go into studies to expand on our gift, both of us having the same gift when younger. It never was enough for her, being stuck in the shadows, all the limitations. She studied really hard to vastly improve her gift, cutting me from her life… Something about being lazy as a bad influence. I don't know, at least I've got a job I'm not shy talking about." Sryine took a moment to consider the two perspectives Jwyexzn offered. Theory or application, both had their value. Jwyexzn at least had found a good place for his gift, hiding in shadows had some really good use, her own invisibility established that, and adding the walking part too it just made it even better. Even restricted to the shadows, it was incredible how he was able to almost teleport from one shadow to another…

"Riyxia, you know efficiency. If someone was then determined to take Jwyexzn's gift and make it better, over several years, what would be good improvements to study?" "Breaking limitations would probably be a great place to start, either specializing all the shadow walking to be either more about either shadows or.. walking. So either have a powerful ability to make things disappear, not just invisible but also safely withdrawn from others, or.. uh.. I guess having ways to travel great distances at will, like teleportation. Something.. kind of like the teleporting person we've been looking for, actually. Why?" Sryine started nodding at Riyxia's input, knowing Riyxia would put everything together even better than she would, and yet they both reached the same conclusion. By that point, even Jwyexzn seemed to have caught up.

"Wait, that was Sis? Why would…?" "Why would your sister look into Khyzae's stuff in her absence? I don't know, isn't she friends with Khyzae?" "Well, she is, but why would she get involved with the beasts? She's always hated things involving the Hunters." "So you think they aren't related? Yet you also say she's been troubled by it. I expect we might be left with confusion about how she's involved, but I think she's involved in it somehow. Ayzherie will want to hear this anyway, even the idea that Khyzae's friends are looking into the Astral Flame is a big deal. If your sister is also involved in the beasts, that's going to take some investigation. I mean, if you both agreed to not get involved in each other's work.. beasts and flame.. if she's gotten involved, you two have something to work out, so you need to figure out if that is even true, right?" Jwyexzn couldn't dispute Sryine's logic, that at this point it would be a big deal if he ignored this situation. He was probably going to need to stay quiet about the theft at work, and instead work with Ayzherie to figure this out. All he needed was to find the time for it…

There wasn’t much free time for anything, in the end. The three girls were kept busy with their training to the point that even Riyxia was of the belief that the plan was to somehow make her Spectre more useful than it really was. Meanwhile, Sryine and Vwyx were taught to become especially practiced with their new gift, and extremely capable of using both at the same time. This provided the girls with a lot of focus and stamina training as well, with Vwyx developing a lot more detailed melds and shifts in her gift and Sryine developing much better stamina levels. Riyxia however hadn’t been diagnosed with much improvements with either, though she was already rather impressive with both as it stood. Where she did improve was in her climbing ability, as there was a lot of other auxiliary training too, for things like running, climbing, jumping, and other areas of generic fitness.

For their first day off, Riyxia had managed to interrupt it with a day of augmented training, so that they would ensure there percisted a degree of balance between their aspects. That day of training involved almost the exact same thing once again as regular training, but was done deeper in the mountains. Vwyx and Sryine would create targets for the three of them to deal with out of illusions and stone, the stone often shifted into other materials. In those situations, they also practiced basic combat, gift usage, and generic fitness, but all of such ended up with much greater results and with much fewer expectations. The biggest expectation was control and consistency, a measure of predictability in what was required and what would occur. Things were really light hearted by design as a result, leaving the three girls feeling rather relaxed as a result. Their unique dispositions still ended up unnerving, Riyxia’s fierce feral noises, Vwyx’s cold emotionless silence, and Sryine’s troubling insane laughter, making for fewer conversation opportunities while augmented. Vwyx and Sryine also adjusted to the augmented forms of their second gift, at most leaving Vwyx capable of terraforming landscapes while Sryine could control the weather. Neither were dramatically huge in area, but both were still far larger than people should typically be capable of using such dramatic gifts, similar to Vwyx’s chasm from before.

The plan for their second day off was to have a real day of rest, but the group was surprised that morning by a new discovery. When Riyxia returned to her body to awaken to the day, the other two girls discovered they were actually still capable of seeing Riyxia’s spectre within her actual body too, something that had never happened before. It was another advantage Riyxia had held, one she had actually always held since her beginning, now lost to her. Supposedly this was simply because the girls had become completed attuned to their traces, giving them a complete sense of visibility. However, they would still never gain Riyxia’s own spectral form, they didn’t have the essence for it, nor the unique body for it, such a thing would remain unique to being an Astral Flame Ersatz.

Training percisted for a couple more days after as well, as the final preparations were completed for their expedition. By the third day after back to training, further training was to be cancelled, the three girls finally ready to cross the mountain and follow Khyzae’s letter.