Virgil's jaw dropped when he saw what Amiri and Balliol brought back from their scouting trip. His own scouting trip with Sarra had been uneventful; they’d only managed to mark more stone hallways that curved gently enough that he barely noticed when they walked out of sight.

Balliol and Amiri came back to where Craig was, dragging the...carcass...of a huge insect of all things. The thing had scorched spots on its body. Balliol’s expression was strange, too: a mixture of disgust, anger, and resolve.

“What in Chaos is that?”

“Dinner,” Amiri chirped happily.

Balliol gulped. “I draw the line at bugs.”

“Yeah, right, tell that to me once you’ve got nothing to eat and you’re close to starving. It’ll look tasty.” Amiri rolled her eyes.

“Uh, sure.” Virgil muttered. “What did you find?”

“A hive. Flightless hornets. They showed aggression, tried to attack so I fried them.” Amiri gave a sharp nod. “At least now we’ll know we won’t starve here.”

“Right.” Virgil leaned over the kill and inspected it. The hornet was about the size of a dog. The limbs ended in stumps but it was easy enough to approximate it full size assuming it had the same proportions as a mundane hornet.

“We’ll have to remove the venom sack,” Craig said as he came closer. “I’m not sure how much of this is edible without a lot of processing.” He paused for a moment then his eyes lit up. “Did you say hive? Were there larvae? Those would be completely edible!”

“You mean we dragged this all the way here for nothing?” Balliol demanded.

“Probably,” Craig said derisively. “Most of the meat on this one would take a lot to make palatable. Well, let’s look for the low hanging fruit first. Er, you didn’t wipe out the hive did you?”

“What and let them stab us in the back?” Amiri cried defensively.

“Oh, Amiri...” Craig sighed.

“Well, let’s head over there, then.”

Balliol snorted in disgust and followed them down the hallway. Virgil rubbed his thumb against his slug-thrower’s handle, taking comfort in the rough texture. Soon enough they came to the site of the carnage. His eyes jumped from the bodies to the hive. Amiri didn’t throw her fire at the structure, so it was relatively intact. It looked like a mixture of mud, metal shavings, and stone. At the ceiling, near one of the light panels, he saw a hole, probably just big enough to crawl through.

“What’s up there, I wonder?” Virgil focused his Animus into his eyes, gathering light reflections until he found one that allowed him to make out what was beyond the hole. His eyes widened when he finally saw through and he dropped the technique. “Greenery beyond.”

“What, really? Oh, thank the Ancestors!” Balliol yelped.

“Well,” Craig mused, “easy enough to climb up there. But let’s check the hive first. See if there’s anything there we can use.”

“You do that.” Balliol eyed the hole, tracing a path from it to his easiest access point. “I’m gonna go up there.”

He walked up to the wall, dropped his bag, then created hardened air shields and braced them against the wall.

“Wait,” Virgil called out. “Here.” He rummaged into his pack and tossed a coil of rope at the other man.

“Right.” Balliol looped it over his head and crouched. He kicked off the shield, conjuring another at the peak of his jump and kicked off that one.

Skrrt!

The edge scraped at the wall, producing a keening wail. Virgil blocked his ears with his fingers, wincing. Craig, on the other hand, went up to a hole in the hive and stuck his head in. He shimmied inside a moment later. Amiri and Sarra kept watch in both directions while Virgil cycled between each of his teammates.

A few moments later, Balliol reached the ceiling. It was barely big enough to fit his wide shoulders. He climbed up, half his body over the edge, while his bottom half dangled ten paces above the floor. He stayed that way for a couple of minutes before he managed to get through and tossed the rope down at them. At the same time, Craig backed out of the hole with a dissatisfied look on his face.

“Nothing,” he grumbled.

“A pity,” Amiri shrugged. “Well, let’s go up then.”

Craig and Virgil let the ladies climb up first, pulling themselves hand over hand after shedding their backpacks. Once they were up, Craig looped the rope around the backpacks and yelled, “Pull up the packs!” It quickly disappeared into the hole. The rope dropped and this time it was Craig’s and Virgil’s packs that went up.

“Go ahead,” Virgil said to Craig after the rope came back down.

He nodded, rubbed his palms together and started climbing. Virgil followed as soon as Craig was through, taking a last glance around the hall just before he pushed himself up the crack.

It narrowed slightly a few inches up, such that he had to empty his lungs and force himself though. But soon enough, he came out into a warmly lit chamber. The ceiling was a transparent dome, apparent only when Virgil enhanced his sight. Otherwise, anyone could be forgiven to think that they were beneath the open sky. It was already late afternoon, with the Radiant Sun setting to the west in a few minutes at most.

They were in a clearing, though it was covered in soft grass. Short cropped grass. Eight paces away was a tree with widespread branches. Greenish fruit hanging in clumps between the leaves. Beyond that, more trees grew in an even line, branches heavy with fruits of all shapes and colour. Virgil thought he could hear the babbling of a brook in both the east and west.

“Well, will you look at that?” Balliol whistled. “Looks like we won’t be indulging in your tastes for now, Amiri.”

“Hmmph!” the red-haired woman snorted.

“I think we need to set up camp.” Sarra looked around. “But not here in the open, of course. This looks like cultivated ground.”

“You think? What gave it away?” Amiri snarked.

Sarra shrugged. “Even rows. Fruit trees. Well-trimmed grass. What else? Hmmm, what about the dirt paths?”

“Ugh.”

The five of them cautiously moved south where the trees were thicker and there were bushes in the distance. They didn’t need to be that close to a water source thanks to their canteens, and given the humidity in the air, the runescript should be able to fill each one in a matter of hours.

About a hundred paces away, they discovered a fallen tree on top of a small boulder. It was relatively secure and since they were technically indoors there shouldn’t be precipitation. One other thing was that the air was pleasantly warm now. A bit more like Rumiga in the Season of Earth or Air. Not too cold, not too hot.

“Which of these are ripe, I wonder?” Virgil mused. The bushes had berries, little green fruits, though some already started turning purple. “Tart lavan berries.”

“Well, look for a ripe mango,” Sarra pointed out. “Though I think some varieties stay green. I think I saw some apples in the distance.”

“Let’s stick close first and wait until daylight to forage,” Craig suggested. “I’ll camouflage our camp. Nobody will see it unless I want them to.”

They broke out into camp chores with Virgil keeping watch. He sat on the fallen log and swept his gaze across the area, finding nothing of interest. The odd thing was that there weren’t any living creatures other than the plants. No insects to pollinate, no birds, or boars, or other forest animals.

Night came and it was still eerily quiet. They had a dinner of lavan berries, earthwolf jerky, and cold water. The berries were sour but still good. It stayed quiet until it was time to change the watch. Virgil forced himself to sleep, a skill every legionnaire learned within their first year. When he woke up, faint sunlight came down from the dome and it was slightly chilly.

Sarra and Amiri had already started breakfast, with the red-haired woman keeping her fire lotus under the pot and Sarra stirring with a wooden ladle. Virgil went through his morning ablutions just out of sight and returned after cleaning himself.

“How was the watch? he asked the others.

“Quiet, mostly.” Balliol and Craig said.

“Ladies?”

“Same.”

“Any idea what we’re supposed to do now?” Amiri continued. “Technically, we’ve fulfilled the bargain made. We’ve explored the plane, we scoured it for artefacts and found none.”

“A few weeks isn’t quite exploring the plane,” Sarra pointed out.

“Are we to comb every inch of it?”

“Well…”

“Don’t tell me we’re to spend a century here going through every nook and cranny!” Balliol protested. “I want to go home already.”

“I suppose we can fulfil the bargain if we just return with one artefact instead,” Virgil mused. “We’ve found the ruins and we can give her our intelligence on it but I’m afraid she’ll reject it if it’s only this much.”

“Do you honestly think we should turn over an artefact to a Chaos Lord?” Craig asked.

Virgil thought for a long moment but ultimately shook his head.

“No. Of course not. Who knows what kind of mischief they’ll get up to. Most God-king artefacts refuse to be used by Chaos dwellers anyway. All of them were created to war against them.”

“Then wouldn’t giving Whisperer an artefact be fine? I mean if she can’t use it?” Balliol asked.

“Don’t be a fool,” Sarra snorted. “Even if they can’t use it, they can still try to figure out how it was made. And from there, develop their own versions. You think the Ocean Skiffer was something they came up with on their own?”

“Well, we still need to get back and if the only way to do so is to make a map of these ruins, then she’s welcome to it,” Balliol grumbled. “Come to think of it, why doesn’t she just explore this place by herself?”

“Thin ambient Chaos? She wanted to avoid the attention of the one she wanted to kill? You’ve asked this before Balliol,” Virgil repeated patiently.

“Aye. And I’ll keep asking until we have a definite answer,” Balliol muttered.

“And the only way we’ll find out is if we ask her,” Virgil rolled his eyes.

“Settle down, boys,” Amiri said as she ladled the stew onto their dishes. They ate quickly. Virgil watched the surroundings while the others ate, eating in turn after Craig finished and he took over the meal watch.

“This is good,” Virgil complimented in between bites.

“Thanks,” Sarra said.

Virgil and Balliol were on clean up duty this time. Craig and the two women packed up camp. Thirty minutes later, they were ready to continue.

They walked west after Craig marked the hole in the ground. That left him room only for one more beacon before he must let some of it go. Well, as long as they could find a way back to the hallways, there was a way back.

The silence remained until midmorning then they came upon more of the flightless hornets. Virgil stopped them just out of sight while he observed.

“They’re…cultivating the land.” The giant hornets were using their forelegs to harvest fruit, trim branches, and cut the long grass. “You killed gardeners,” Virgil snorted drily.

“Well, they were trying to attack us,” Amiri protested.

“Uh-huh. Well, let’s avoid them for now.”

They took a detour, Virgil keeping an eye on the hornets. But they didn’t get more than a couple hundred paces when they were blocked by even more hornets in front. And at the sides. They backtracked and tried a different route but again they found themselves encountering more of the hornets. Virgil could see their antennae twitching. They’d long stopped their gardening activities.

They tried to back away but less than fifty paces later, another group of hornets came from behind them.

“We’ll either have to retreat or punch through them,” he announced grimly.

Two flowers, fire-loti, floated above Amiri’s hands. “Well, if they insist on a fight, I say we give it to them.”

“It’s too late to back out anyway,” Craig readied himself, eyes sweeping around them. “There are more over there.”

Virgil readied his Plasma Caster, though he didn’t think he’d contribute much to this battle. None of the hornets looked like a leader or exceptionally dangerous.

“You’re not planning on butchering everything we kill right?” Balliol asked Amiri nervously.

She gave a wide grin. “You’ll get tired of fruits eventually.”

She made a throwing motion and her loti flew off in different directions, spitting fire seeds by the dozen. Virgil, Sarra, and Craig held back and let the youngest of them have her fun. Balliol contributed to the slaughter by chucking wind knives.

Soon, there was nought but half-scorched bodies around them. All the while, there was no sign of anything more dangerous and, if he were being honest with himself, that made him jittery.

What else was waiting out there?