The heat was nigh unbearable. Even with Morgan’s arte pulling it away, Kimi felt the searing air scorch her lungs with each breath. Unfortunately, the flaming hellscape was only the first of her worries. She snapped away with a tech barely in time to dodge a beam of light. It shattered a boulder in her path and forced her to roll over the tumbling debris.

“Any time there, buddy,” she said to her ghost.

It wasn’t a great sign when Morgan didn’t even flinch. He was currently doing some overly complicated arte-work in order to allow them to Shift away with the Keystone in tow.

Meanwhile, she was running for their life from a gang of mysterious white haired women with silver eyes. They dropped in shortly after the pair retrieved the Keystone from the crater of Monte Aldé, and seemed to know a lot more about her than she did about them. Or, at the very least, knew they wanted her dead.

She slipped by a few more light beams, and was about to find cover in the flaming wreckage of the surrounding forest, when a figure dressed in black dropped in front of her. Their eyes flashed silver and she felt her body freeze in place. Her black clad assailant pulled a shaft with a half moon blade from her back and locked it into shape. They slashed at her with frightening speed, and Kimi was swallowed by darkness.

She emerged a second later, freed from the grasp of the dark figure. She sighed and said, “Gods, Morgan, could you have cut that any closer?”

He laughed awkwardly and replied, “Not even if I tried.”

Kimi pulled out the silver crystal and looked over. “So, what’s this thing do for us anyway? More of those… plant things?”

“Our first order of business is to get the World Net to stop reporting our every move,” he said.

“And then?”

“And then….” He fiddled with an arte for a moment. “And then we go north.”