As the morning light filled the room, Anna found Azure working quietly at the table with a series of parts arranged in a line, seemingly in the order they would be needed. With spools of metal cord and Wattles, it wasn’t entirely clear what she was making, though she noticed that the general shape resembled a miniature version of their Divam. The grip seemed to be wooden, with the same smooth shape as an Orarm but with titrant barrels like the Anima Lance. When the final part was in place, a stack of Wattles, the length of a finger, were pushed into a box in the object’s grip. Orgam seeds were then fed into a sliding slot on the bottom and round metal baller were fed into a slot on the top.

“Following the local nomenclature, I call it a Hybrid Armament. The design shall also be called the HA-001.”

Azure had once again noticed her watching, though she had been careful to not make a sound. As Anna noticed the various parts used in the weapon, as well as a new fire stone, she realised that Azure had gone outside during the night. Despite her thinking that Azure was under her control, it was clear that she would do whatever she wanted to when Anna slept. Anna had no doubt that the parts were obtained through violence.

“Where did you get the parts for it?”

“While I was out looking for humans with viable mutations, I found that the lady who sold Ren Stones had extra arteries connecting from her Mana Well to her hands that she was able to use to create an effect like that of a fire stone. She referred to it as the “First Mana Pathway” and believed that a Lord Magus would have second and third pathways also.” As she explained, she held up her palm and a candle flame appeared in the air above her hand. “Despite the pathway only being partially constructed, I’m already able to match the frequency of Ren Stones to create effects. Its unfortunate that the shopkeeper only had fire, water, light and darkness stones. Her memory indicated she had also possessed wind and iron stones before.”

With the mention of memories, Anna confirmed the shopkeeper was dead. She felt nothing, though. It was merely a fact to her, without an emotion, that a stranger had died. It seemed to her that she ought to feel revulsion to Azure’s action, but nothing welled up. Instead she focused on her curiosity, telling herself that she was just distracting herself, and that she really did feel something.

“But what about the parts? Where did they come from?”

“After gaining the scans and memories I required, I needed to make it look like a robbery to evade suspicion. Thus, I took things of value that I could disassemble and recycle as well as her short Organic Armament and Wattles. The body was disposed of in the river, so the suspicions won’t be raised until after we are gone.”

With that, they got dressed and went to get breakfast in the bar. While Anna ate fresh eggs, grains and fruits, Azure didn’t order, saying that she rarely ate in the morning, flash the waitress an expression that said she was worried about her weight. The waitress seemed to take the hint and walked way smiling, as if a part of a close secret; one that would no doubt be spread.

After eating and paying they returned to the room to fetch what they needed for the day and lock up what they weren’t brining. They had decided during breakfast that they would check out the Orchard, as both were curious about how weapons could be grown, and Azure wanted to test the HA-001 at the firing range. The militiamen about town seemed three seconds away from a panic as the orderly salute that had greeted them was now quivering hands and dropped seeds. The town’s leader was down by the piers, trying to organise every boat that docked there or past within earshot to take more people with them. The ferry across the river normally ran twice a day, but was now making immediate return trips. As they walked by, the leader noticed them and ran over to them.

“Lords, my Lords, please wait,” he said through gasping breaths. “I’ve contacted Atwaun as you suggested, and they had a hawk-rider scouting the eastern settlements and, well, the rider was able to confirm the demon sittings.”

“That make it sound like you doubted me,” Azure’s scowl made the already sweating man shake as a torrent of water burst from his pores.

“I would never dream of it. I would never; I swear. I’m only relaying what the Lords in Atwaun did,” he hesitated after that and continued with the care of a someone walking into a beast’s den. “While I would never try to command a Lord, I do have to relay what the Lords said. They told me to tell you, and any other Lords that pass through, that a summons is in effect. Eastern Lords are to travel along Kawa’s Northern-Tradeway to Najask. The Wind Path will open two months from today and any Lord not on the ship will have their land tax doubled for three years.”

Seeing Azure glare at him, the leader realised that he had essentially just threatened her, and she seemed far from the lenient type.

“Please have mercy, Lord, I was just repeating the message. If the thing you rode in on won’t make it in time, I’ll have one of the dragon’s blood boats brought out, so you can take it up stream to Kawa.”

Without acknowledging anything the leader said, Azure took Anna by the hand and started to walk away. Once they were away from anyone, Azure relaxed.

“The memories I have taken in so far don’t include anything about Najask, and very little about Kawa. Is there anything vital to us about them?”

Anna had to think about that, though her thoughts were spinning at the way Azure had said ‘us’ and was making little headway into her memories. It was natural grouping, nothing special about it, but the way it seemed to bind them sat well with her. It was like the verbal equivalent of the way Azure always tried to hold her hand. Azure’s cute eye’s looking into her own cause those thoughts to flee and she focused on what she knew.

“I’ve heard traders say that Kawa is the capital city of the east, and that it’s the only port that is able to trade with the norther continent. Northern artefacts are a lot more common there, though they don’t make it far into the east since they mostly get traded to Najask for Ren Stones to be traded with the northerners. That’s about all I know.”

How little she knew made her feel useless, but Azure nodded happily, as if learning something new was something worth celebrating. Seeing that, Anna couldn’t help but want to tell her everything she knew. As they walked out to the Orchard, Anna spoke about the traders, pilgrims and travellers who passed through her town and the various things she heard from them. Metal work was never a quick thing, and they often passed time talking to her as her father worked, there was little else they could do in a town like that.

From the outside, the Orchard seemed like a nursery, with a green mesh building from young plants set up beside a neat row of tall, crimson red barked trees. Each tree was ten to twenty metres tall with bean like seed pods between half a metre and two metres long. On one of the trees was a man standing on wooden scaffolding trying to cut a wilted pod from a branch. He was using a pickaxe and every swing he made sent a bell like ring and sparks through the air. Unlike the new pods, the wilted one almost perfectly resembled the long barrelled Orarms she had seen the militiamen use. Nearby, they heard a series of cracking sounds, each within a second of the first but clearly not synchronised, as they could see the militiamen had a firing range set up. The sound was only half as loud as Anna remembered the Sacram to be, but it was still a lot of noise. Each of the men at the range had their ears stuffed with what appeared to be moss, to solve that problem.

“You’ve come just in time, Lords,” a young red headed woman wearing soil covered apron said as she approached them, “I was just about to plant the newest sapling, and it’s said to be good luck for a Lord to watch.”

The woman was holding a normal looking green plant in an earthen pot, along with a Ren Stone in the other. Saying that it would be their pleasure to watch, they went along with her, letting her explain the place as she worked.

“These trees actually pre-date Ren’s Salvation, and are all grown from the same branch of the original tree. It’s a rumoured that the original plants were harmless toys that children used to learn Sacram safety with, but with the discovery of Ren Stones, they became humanity’s best tool against the beasts of the wilderness. Unfortunately, that means to grow even one sapling to a harvesting age needs a fist sized iron stone each. That’s a bottleneck in our production. If not for trading with Kawa, and Kawa’s trading with the inland and north, we’d never have the production rate that we do here.”

After digging a hole for the sapling, the lady sang the Prayer of Ren and the stone she held started to gently mist red and black dust. Azure asked to hold it for a few moments, and after she had examined it, it was buried in the soil beneath the sapling and fertiliser. She then thanked them for watching and they went over to the firing range.

Anna carried the Sacram since the day Azure handed it to her but hadn’t used it at all. In the afternoons when they had travelled, Azure taught her how to hold it and how to shoot it, but they she hadn’t shot with it. The number of shots they had was really limited, Azure had said, so she wanted to wait until they had an alternative weapon or supply before starting. At the range, they had the opportunity they were waiting for. An Orarm wasn’t an exact match for a Sacram, but it was close enough to learn with. The Orchard had an abundance of training seeds, which they could apparently grow on trees without iron stones, and sold them for a single Wattle each. After an hour or so playing around with them, watching the yellow juice stain the target wall, Anna switched over to trying a couple real seeds. They had a lot more power behind them and they kicked up a puff of dirt when they struck the wall. By the afternoon, Anna was competent enough that Azure suggested taking a couple shots with the Sacram to get the feel of it. It was nothing at all like that Orarm. With the squeeze of the trigger, the thunderous roar sent sharp pain through her braced arms and she felt as though she were striking metal at a forge. The dirt spray when the projectile hit the wall splashed the shooters line and left an impact crater.

That damage was light compared to when Azure tested the HA-001. When Azure held it up to shoot, it made the buzzing sound that the Divam had made, as well as the clicking into place sound of the Sacram made ready. When it shot, the light cracking sound of an Orarm was made, followed by the pulse sound and a spark of lighting. The target wall exploded with the impact and a hole as big as Azure’s head was missing from the wall. The training men were shocked by the difference in power. Some clearly eyed the weapon but knew better than to risk angering a Lord.

With a day at the range, Anna was competent enough to protect herself against normal targets, though Azure cautioned her that she still wouldn’t be able to do a thing against demons, and they returned to town for dinner. During lunch they had joined with militiamen with some simple sandwiches, but Anna was now hungry again after a day of running around the range. Azure insisted that just shooting from one place wasn’t enough, and had Anna run while shooting and shooting a moving target that was pulled along by a rope. Before dinner at the pub, Anna took a shower in their room. Azure hadn’t done much during the day and was completely free of dirt and sweat, which seemed impossible in the tropical heat. If the legends about the fire and brimstone homeland of demons were true, then the tropics would be chilly be comparison, she reasoned. While she got ready, Azure had gone down ahead of her and ordered. When she reached the table, her meal was there waiting for her. To her surprise, Azure seemed tired. She looked somewhat dazed and almost seemed to vacantly gaze at nothing.

“Sorry, I didn’t notice you arrived,” she said then Anna waved her hand in front of her face. “I haven’t managed my power well, but my solution will be finished tonight. Until then…”

As she said that, she got up from her seat and moved into Anna’s lab. She draped her arms around her neck and buried her face into Anna shoulder. With eyes shut and a contented expression, she seemed to almost sleep there. The other patrons seemed to stir, whisper and jeer, but Anna pretended not to notice as she struggled to eat her meal without disturbing Azure. She knew that Azure wasn’t asleep, since she occasionally kissed her neck playfully, but she felt like it would spoil the moment to doing anything about it. When she finished her meal, her willpower had been pulled to its limit, and she lifted Azure and carried her up stairs to their room. The patrons who saw her let out a cheer, some sincere and others mockingly, as they watcher her determined walk.

Once alone in their room, Anna took Azure’s lips deeply, twisting their tungs and letting each other’s flavour fill their mouths. On the bed she struggled to reconcile the needs to hold her tight against her and to strip away their clothes, a solution only presenting itself when she needed to separate for breath. Azure’s eyes met hers as she let go of their embrace to remove her shirt and the desire, the longing, the hunger there almost made her tear it of instead. Azure’s own desire seemed to dwarf hers and something competitive kicked in. With efficient movements that Anna couldn’t match, Azure stripped away her dress and Anna’s shirt and pulled them together, rolling Anna onto her back on the bed. As the night went on, Anna drowned in pleasure feeling more and more exhausted as Azure seemed to grow more and more energetic. As she fainted, she recalled the tails of demons like the succubus, and in that moment felt she had misidentified Azure’s race.

The next morning Anna woke up well past dawn and found Azure resting on her chest, their hands held together and Azure looking up at her face, evidently being awake for some time. Razing her body, Anna bent forward and gave Azure a deep morning kiss. When she did so, she felt a strange movement in her body. It was like she could feel her own blood flowing. It rose from her womb, up to her lungs, out to her hands then up to her head. From there, it seemed to drop back to her womb and start the cycle again. It wasn’t just her blood though, she could feel twists of wind in the air immediately around her. Noticing her expression, Azure burst into her brightest smile.

“You’ve noticed it already, right?” her smile turned cutely smug. “Last night, using the energy you gave me, I managed to complete the First Mana Pathway in your body. Now I can recharge far more efficiently.”