When the Airi's vision returned back to normal, her fingers retreated. The child wasn't sure what to think of the experience, but kept lips sealed, to make sure the secret is kept and that the archivist learns nothing of this uncanny event.

Airi wasn't sure If her request should be considered a question. Regardless, the child didn't want to break the promise and decided it would be better to count it as such. In this case, there was only a single question remaining.

"Claire."

"Yes?"

"How do I get strong?"

"Eat proper meals, rest well, and exercise. Don't overdo it. Remember to be consistent and patient. For a kid of your age, I have a special brochure with a schedule that will help your body grow healthy."

An outlet of a printer appeared below Claire. Inside it, hundreds of small lasers focused on a black tablet, engraving it with green symbols. When Airi touched the stone, a holographic page appeared slightly above it, presenting many images of vegetables, fruits, meat, and dairy, with tables that described their dietary information.

Airi skimmed through the pages, then uttered in an annoyed voice. - "I meant stronger!"

Claire's lights flickered slowly. - "How strong?"

"Strong enough to destroy the Horegon!"

"Calculating..." - Claire's light became dim and AI didn't respond for long minutes, until its glow returned to normal. - "I have no answer to your question, but I suggest that you study at the Academy. Considering your current capabilities, it'll take about five cycles for your enrollment to be successful, If you follow the following procedure..."

Another, way smaller round tablet was gifted to Airi. After the girl activated it, a single sphere with the word 'begin' appeared. Upon touch, three more nodes popped up, named - Psyche, Physicality, Mind. Curiously, Airi moved her fingers over the 'Mind' category discovering labels such as 'Arcane' or 'Sciences' and as she continued to move deeper more and more orbs appeared, with subcategories such as 'Natural sciences', 'Laws', 'Admiralty' and so on, until a whole library of books, documents, and images was revealed to Airi, all focused on some aspects of very specific, local laws of the Academy. Seeing the bulk of information, Airi began to explore other nodes, until countless of them poped around and the whole graph turned into an enormous, hard to navigate, mess.

"It'll take forever!"

"Take your time."

"..but..."

The archivist grunted and Airi hastily switched off the tablet and hid it in a pocket, then turned around and looked at the old man, who appeared to wake up from his nap.

"How is it Airi? Did Claire answer your questions?" - The archivist asked as he struggled to shift to a sitting position.

"Yes!"

"Good." - The old man looked at an hourglass tied to his belt. - "It's time to leave. I would say, we're a bit late."

"Mmm."

"We could visit the Amnesty... but you already know enough about them. Would you like to skip that part and learn of the Destroyer and the infamous Möbius Syndicate?"

"No... I want to see all the records."

"Okay, but it's a time wasted." - The archivist extended his hand to Airi. - "Remember to thank Claire and say goodbye."

"Thanks for the help, Claire. See you!" - Airi said while waving to the orb of light.

"My pleasure. Goodbye, Airi." - After a moment the orb deactivated and all the lights in the room turned off.

The archivist and Airi exited the Anaarian records and traveled south, until they entered a concrete land full of shipping containers with many moving cranes towering above them. It was like a gigantic warehouse. The archivist led Airi to a steel ladder, which was a path to a control room hanging at the corner of the room.

When inside, the archivist moved some levers, activated a few switches, and pushed buttons until all the lightbulbs hanging above him were lit. All but one of the cranes stopped working. This single crane carried a container to two rails situated at the ceiling and the shipment moved to a platform next to the control room. The archivist approached it with Airi, then unlocked the chains, that guarded the container, with heavy scissors that lied against the railings.

Inside, was an old radio broadcasting station, but the archivist ignored it. Instead, he moved to the racks and took out large cassettes, then shoved them into a slot. An interview was played.

"Sir, sir!!!"

"Yes?"

"We're representatives of Marshall Co, our initiative is to discover the strange and reveal the phenomenal. We've received the information that you served at Amnesty for over fifty years. If that's true, we would like to conduct an interview."

"Hah. It's true. Shoot."

"Thank you, sir! - First, please tell us, what was the experience like?"

"Nothing special. Sleep, eat, work... the usual."

"What was the work like?"

"Eh, I was assigned to cleaning toilets... and I tell you, that ship, has enough toilets to fill a schedule of a few crews."

"Sir, are you trying to say, you were just cleaning toilets for fifty years?"

"Hell yeah, I did."

"That's... definitely unusual... were you content with that?"

"Who would be!? I've tried changing jobs, but once you land a gig on Amnesty, it sticks for decades."

"...noted. What about the leisure time?"

"Nothing. For the first few months, I was bored out of my mind."

"Could you elaborate?"

"There is literally nothing to do on Amnesty. It's just a big, empty ship. You have to organize the time yourself."

"...and If any of our listeners was to board Amnesty, is there any advice you would like to give them on how to do that?"

"Eh, everyone is different, but I tell ya – first, smuggle cards, a few books. Find a good crew to stick with, exercise. If you're out of options, you can always find someone willing to trade contraband for a few months of overtime work."

"I'm confident that your suggestions will be helpful to some of our audience. Next. In your spare time, you sure were to explore the ship to a great extent. You must've seen many things and heard a lot of tales. What secret, does Amnesty hide?

"The silent crew, in their diving hardsuits. They exist, it's true."

"Ohh..."

"...and there are locked decks below the ships. Contrary to what some may believe, they're told to be accessible, but no mere man lives long enough to serve the number of years it takes to get there."

"May I ask, how do you know that?"

"I heard it from our old cook. If you're lucky, you get to meet a few climbers, or cursed, on the ship. They live to tell the tale."

"Climbers? Cursed?"

"For heaven's sake, you don't know?"

"Sorry, sir."

"What sector did I land in?"

"What do you mean by sector?"

The man cursed a few intelligible words, the muttered - "I landed on a boundary world, who would've thought..."

"Ekhm... If you would be so kind to our listeners, could you explain this puzzling derailment?"

"Yeah, I might as well do. This place, is a s**thole. Out there, are wonders that your people could never have thought of."

The interview was silent for a moment, suggesting that its part was conducted off the radio.

"Our kind gentleman is willing to share the exclusive story of his homeworld, deep in the dark void. We'll conduct the interview at twenty o'clock." - The journalist announced. - "For now, back on the track. After a commercial break, we'll uncover one final secret of Amnesty, so stay tuned."

"Let's skip that part." - The archivist pressed a fast forward and the interview continued.

"Welcome back, so... what's the last mystery of the Amnesty, that you would be willing to share?"

"The Amnesty, it's said to exist earlier than the beginning of the recorded history. It survived the destruction of the reality, and its recreation."

"The events you speak of... do you mean, the rupture?"

"Apparently, it's what you call it, so yes."

"That seems... more like a myth or a legend, but given the unexplainable nature of the ship, there might be a seed of truth to it..."

"That's enough." - The archivist pressed stop. - "What he said, is true. That's the reason Amnesty is one of the twelve. Nobody knows the ship's destination, but it keeps pushing deeper and deeper into higher territories, disregarding the threat of nightmares, celestial creatures, and eldritch entities. Apparently, the ship is nigh-indestructible and once managed to cross witch's territory and escape the assault of her forces."

"Amnesty is the only place that is safe." - Airi added.

"Perhaps, but the ship was still somehow damaged. There are permanent holes in its iron hull and it seems nobody was able to repair them for two cycles."

"Do you think... that it can withstand an attack of the witch?"

"No..."

Airi lowered her head.

"Nonetheless, I believe, If the witch was to attack it, it would leave her vulnerable." - The archivist looked at his hourglass. - "We should hurry. There are still three ships to learn of."

Airi nodded and carefully climbed down the ladder, the archivist gazed at the broadcast station, one last time. - "My days there, better be forgotten." - He pushed the lever and the cargo disappeared in the sea of other containers.

Avi was waiting next to the exit and noticed a vintage car in the distance. She recognized the archivist behind a glass screen.

"It should speed up our journey." - The old man spoke as he arrived and extended his hand to Airi, to allow the child to climb inside.

Avi situated herself on an elegant black seat, finding it quite comfortable, and enjoyed the drive. However, Airi had some doubts. - "Aren't we supposed to keep the records in their original state?"

"Yes, but today, is an exception."

"Why?"

The archivist was worrying, but hid it well. - "Because you're with me."

"Mmm. Okay."

The car sped across the library, entering a red carpet and passing shelves and piles of stacked books, until the interior resembled exquisite apartments of the victorian aristocracy. Cushioned armchairs and long tables filled the halls illuminated by street lanterns. Bound literature was ordered by categories, their titles were sewn onto the leather in golden leathers.

Yet, they still weren't there.

The archivist stopped the motorcar in front of double, curved stairs, which led them to a mezzanine. There, the old man pulled one of the books and the bookshelves retracted, revealing a glass pathway to a far skyscraper. The floor beneath moved like a conveyor belt, transporting the two to an elevator, which led to the top of the building, where a business conference room awaited.

The archivist moved to a wall and opened one of the built-in drawers, then tossed a few folders with documents on the table. Next, he moved to shelves with binders and grabbed a black one, on the topmost shelf, then opened it, revealing a picture of a rather long and thin, dark ship built from thirty-four cubic modules, with an infinity symbol on its frontal side.

"This is the Destroyer. A ship with particle cannon capable of penetrating the strongest armors and responsible for melting down hundreds of metropolis-tier megastructures and cities."

"Why would they do that?"

"Punishment. Möbius Syndicate is the largest criminal organization... or perhaps, no longer is, because they managed to become a sovereign region. Their laws are absolute and breaking them often equals death, not just to you, but your entire lineage. It's not unprecedented, that If the leader of a district tries to become an independent enclave, the Destroyer would show up and erase it from existence."

"Shouldn't the alliances do something about that?"

"Against the faction of their size? It's mutually assured destruction, unless Anaari would be willing to share their tech in secret. Most of us are at Möbius's mercy, but the syndicate seems to favor commercial relationships over war, so we're safe as long as we don't screw them, in which case you'll probably be assimilated."

The archivist moved his hands to the folders, then revealed thirty four documents with profiles of syndicate's heads. They all were wearing the same black suits with small emblems, each had a different symbol, and in every document was a different list of crimes. Slavery, plain annihilation of species, sabotaging industrial systems, piracy, flesh broking, the study of arcane taboos, destruction of space stations, spatial displacement of planes, time-dilated unjust imprisonment and torture – the list continued.

Airi curiously peeked at the contents, but the archivist hastily shoved her aside. - "We're not to study these, just pay attention to the photos and remember how their look. If you ever cross their path, just run." - He removed photos from the documents and presented them in front of a girl.

One, a man with a head like a glowing cube.

Second, a shapeshifter made out of nanites.

Third, a black male human with a red eye and a scar on the second eye.

Fourth, a robot with triple eyes hidden beneath a thick carapace with cube-shaped thorns.

Fifth, a burning girl made out of ruby.

Sixth, three green orbs floating over the neckless torso.

Seventh, a female in a golden mask and black hood.

Eighth, a black insectoid with six eyes and six arms.

Ninth, a short pale girl with white antlers.

Tenth, what appeared to be five identical bodies of humanoid with chrome scales.

Eleventh, a creature with a head in the shape of a hand, with five eyes on top of its stalks.

Twelfth, a silver man with golden irises and hair, and an aura of white light.

Thirteenth, a skeleton with a goat skull, wearing a cracked astronaut's helmet.

Fourteenth, an android with a removed face, cut cables hanging from its inside.

Fifteenth, a coral.

Sixteenth, a mannequin.

Seventeenth, a female with a face hidden behind a curtain of red ribbons hanging from silver rings.

Eighteenth, an old man with a long beard, covered in parasitic, mind-controlling fungus.

Nineteenth, a dwarven male war-veteran, clean-shaved and bald, with veins infected by purple fluorescent sludge.

Twentieth, a robot-lizard, with a long neck and a head like a flower made of steel plates with a single eye inside.

Twenty-first, an orc renegade with countless piercings and tattoos all over his body.

Twenty-second, a gray-skinned female with rings on her face, surrounded by butterflies.

Twenty-third, a chief with shark teeth, no other facial features are present.

Twenty-fourth, a rabbit girl with a blindfold on her eyes

Twenty-fifth, a neckless entity made of white light, with a single golden ring in place of an eye and thousands of light tentacles protruding from its back.

Twenty-sixth, a man with a half-white, half-black mask only with four eye slits.

Twenty-seventh, an albino gorgon.

Twenty-eighth, flesh monstrosity, with tentacle hands and numerous maws and eyes on its neckless head.

Twenty-ninth, clockwork robot with a gear halo and six large yellow wings like that of a dragonfly

Thirtieth, a female drow in a pirate tricorn with a long peacock feather, with shoulder-length white dreadlocks with golden clasps on their ends.

Thirty-first, an old, female gray-haired fox with a monocle and a top hat.

Thirty-second, an incorporeal, blue entity with a lock instead of a face and long curls.

Thirty-third, a male charred-black angel, with iridescent cracks over its entire body.

Thirty-fourth, a humanoid silhouette like made of shifting, mixed paints.

Airi finished inspecting the photos, but still had questions. - "Why are they all so different than us?"

"Because of their origin, or their past. Some were born at the boundary worlds, some were afflicted by the labyrinth." - The archivist began to clip the photos back to the documents. - "You must know, the witch has only one scar, and it's their doing. That's why they're one of the twelve. "

"...but If the witch bled, bad things were bound to happen. How are they still alive?"

"They had to sacrifice thousands of realms in an endless war with the witch, and it still continues to this day. Despite their size, they might be the first faction to fall." - The archivist stashed folders and binders back into their place. - "That's all you need to know for now, please call the elevator, we are leaving."

"Mmm. Okay." - Airi ran to press the button, and at the same time, the archivist nervously peeked at his hourglass.