Yuriko carefully lowered herself into the hot water. The temperature perceived by her Anima still had a bit of a disconnect with the rest of her body. While there was Radiant energy hidden away in every bit of her, in her Anima, the Radiant danced freely. That sort of warped her perception of heat, as evidenced by how everyone else avoided the part of the pool she was dipping in.

Still, the heat was wonderful! It suffused deep into her muscles and relaxed the tightly wound fibres. As soon as the water reached up to her bosom, she let out a happy sigh and leaned back against the rock lip.

Gwendith was a few paces away from her, as was Saki. Desire had opted not to join them in the hot springs, though her hymns drifted into the chamber. Aside from a towel carefully wrapped around their hair, none of them wore a scrap of clothing.

Sorren’s hot spring pools were one of the resort’s biggest attractions, especially after a long day at work. They were inset into the caverns to the north of the hotel and were separated into several chambers divided between the sexes. The women’s region was about half the size of the men’s but that was mostly due to the settlement’s population. There were mixed bathing too, but those were mostly occupied by men. Well, teenage boys, really.

Dinner a couple of hours ago in the pavilion was quite illuminating. Vaeril and his grandson gave them the story of Sorren’s Hollow. Their Ancestors had made it, apparently, more than a dozen or so generations ago. Before the Shattering.

This place, Synkrasia, was a pre-Shattering city, though now it was empty. Not really a ruin after all, just empty.

Sorren’s Hollow was a place of rest and relaxation, a vacation spot close to the city with amenities that mimicked other destinations while it remained close to home. The ancestral Sorren built this place with the support of the original inhabitants, then after the Shattering, it was abandoned. It was found a few centuries ago by Vaeril’s grandfather, using some sort of key.

As for the Warforged, well, not much was known about them. Vaeril said that they were already in Synkrasia before. Patrollers, miners, and repairers. They fixed any damage to the buildings, dug out ore and other materials from the open mine pit south of the Crafter’s District, and brought it somewhere within the Inner Court. That area they defended to the last.

As for the Athrodius, they only appeared after one of the inhabitants snuck into the Garrison Quarter and set off something accidentally. That opened the gate between the Inner Court and the Foreign Quarter, and hence, the increased Warforged activity.

Automatons. That’s what Vaeril called the Warforged. Creatures of metal and oil. They weren’t born but made, and they followed the Athrodius’ orders even if it resulted in their destruction.

After dinner, Marron and Vaeril agreed to coordinate a mission into the Garrison Quarter to find out if they could close the gate that way. The problem was that the Warforged had increased their patrols there and the old route was no longer passable. They would discuss tomorrow morning and in the meantime, they were treated to the Hollow’s luxurious amenities.

“Yuri.” Gwendith said as she crept closer to her.

Yuriko smirked at the other girl, whose Anima cooled the surrounding waters, which resulted in a plume of mist and steam billowing around them. The cavern was lit with dim luminescent gemstones scattered across the walls and ceiling, and the ambience had led to her almost dozing off.

Gwendith sat next to her, pressed her hip against hers, and then she rested her head on Yuriko’s shoulder.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” she murmured.

“Uhn. Yeah.”

Yuriko sighed. Her Anima perception enfolded the entirety of Gwendith’s body and she did a cursory examination. The wounds she took during the battle earlier today had already closed, but she could still see discolouring and abrasions marring her soft skin. Body Forging had repaired the damage deprivation and the barbarians had done to her, and Gwendith looked just as pretty as she did the first time the two of them had met.

“I didn’t expect to meet people down here,” Gwendith murmured. “Ancestors, I didn’t think we’d actually discover a Pre-Shattering ruin!”

“Yeah,” Yuriko agreed, “but most of the people living here truly are exiles.” Nearly half of the diners in the pavilion were from off-plane. “How did they end up here, I wonder?” she continued. “Did they enter a channel through the Federation’s side or from somewhere else?”

“An underground channel?” Gwendith mused. “That’s possible, isn’t it?”

Yuriko thought back to her journey through the Chaos Sea. She had gone under the Delovine plane rather than around, and she was sure that she saw a tunnel at the bottom. “Yes, I think so. No, I know it’s possible. I saw one during my journey.”

“You think every underground Chaos Channel led into tunnels and caverns like this?”

“I guess so.”

Yuriko wondered how the Empire really secured their planes. What did they do against underground passages like this?

“Hmmm. Let’s not think of such things now,” Gwendith purred as she snuggled up against Yuriko. “Have…have you thought about…”

Yuriko sighed. She hadn’t, actually. Too many things had happened and she’d been too preoccupied. Her thoughts turned inward and she examined her emotions. With her perception in full use, she could see every inch of Gwendith, though her body wasn’t something she hadn’t seen before. Beyond the physical, which she had to admit was a pleasure to look at, their relationship had started out as a rivalry of sorts. Though the next time they really spent time together had been during the internship.

Then, the other girl had been reliable and wasn’t hostile at all. In truth, she’d started seeing the other girl as a friend ever since then, especially after they experienced battle together. Now, she still didn’t know if she actually loved Gwen. At least in the way the other girl wanted.

She wasn’t averse to it though. Even if the emotional connection wasn’t there, she wondered if a physical one would be fine. Memories from her incarnations certainly helped clear things up. But then, Yuriko’s incarnations didn’t really love her lovers. Not in the sense she thought Gwendith wanted.

Those were all physical and casual things. Ancestors, her third incarnation had different lovers every night! As she grew in Anima strength, she actually needed less sleep to function normally, and her incarnation spent the extra hours in debauchery.

That was the thing though. She didn’t feel love for Gwendith in that sense, but she wasn’t bothered by the idea of having a physical relationship. Besides, she did enjoy cuddling. Gwendith was nicely soft and squeezable.

She drew back from Gwendith and then noted the hurt in the other girl’s eyes. “I still don’t know.” Yuriko admitted, “but I don’t really mind.”

“Oh.” Gwendith smiled brightly, but Yuriko pressed a finger over the other girl’s lips.

“I’m already a Knight in legal status.”

The other girl frowned for a few moments, then her face lit up in realisation. Her cheeks reddened. “I see. I’ll wait then.”

“Alright.” Yuriko patted the other’s shoulder, but then Gwendith pressed herself closer. “Eh?”

“This is fine, isn’t it?” she giggled.

Well, Yuriko supposed it was.

__________

It took a couple of days to get the expedition ready. Honestly, Yuriko had expected delays, if only for supplies and planning. But, well, the plan was foolishly simple. She and the others would try to reach the gate, going through the Garrison Quarter, and close it.

As for the Warforged and the Athrodius, the Hollow residents will try to attract the Drones’ attention and it would be up to her and the others to take care of the Athrodius. There were three of them, and one had left the city. Another guarded a different area in the Inner Court and wouldn’t leave it unless someone came too close, while the last one was the one she had fought a couple of days ago.

She mentally reviewed the battle and sought Damien’s advice. He said it was simple, really. Just bash it to pieces.

If violence doesn’t work, clearly you aren’t using enough of it, he said laughingly. Seriously though, you already had the right idea. Practice loading more Animus into the sword dances and that should do.

So she spent the entirety of yesterday doing just that. It wasn’t anything profound, really. It was just a matter of figuring out how to add more Animus without destabilising the flow. Doing it for one dance was generally easy, but doing it for the three fused ones was tricky. Each extra strand affected the other dances, and with three of them sporting more Animus than usual, it was nine times as likely to disrupt everything.

She still hadn’t managed to fuse the fourth dance with the rest of them, but she could still activate it at need even if she was using the others. Fusing it in would mean having its effect always active and honestly, she was wary of the Animus cost that would entail. She might blow her whole reserves in under a minute and no good could come of that.

But still, she needed to work out how to do it, if only to have the option. And, it was the key to unlocking the perfect strike that the Golden Silhouette had shown her before. It was the ideal, the goal she had to work for, but it wasn’t easy.

Oh! Maybe if she managed to capture an Ennoia of swordsmanship then perhaps a true fusion of all four dances would work. Ah! And she could probably fuse in the Four Phases too!

She daydreamed of the skill and prowess she could attain if she managed that feat. But first, she should grasp the Radiant Ennoia. That was the source of power and her greatest advantage after all.

Well, she figured it out. She could now increase the running cost of her dances to thirty lumens a minute. With her external reserves’ regeneration speed, her practical costs were ten lumens a minute. She had a total reserve of one thousand two hundred lumens, so it would take a couple of hours to run dry. Ah, she also etched three Adamant Guardian Seals. Two on either palm and a third on her left forearm. She readied fifty lumens to power each one.

A single Seal could defend her against an Animus strength of a hundred times whatever lumens she invested into it. Fifty was the practical maximum she could do, which allowed the Seal to last a second or two. She could overcharge it, but then it degraded faster. A Plasma Carronade’s bolts magnified invested Animus only by a factor of five, but it had a minimum charge. A Plasma Caster increased Animus intensity by fifty percent, while a Lancet didn’t add anything other than the capability to strike at range. Most tools were limited by the maximum amount of lumens invested, so her Seal could practically defend her against any kind of attack. For a couple of seconds.

Funnily enough, this knowledge didn’t come from her classes or from her brother. Instead, it had been Damien analyzing extant weaponry in his idle time. The calculations were lost to her, really, and those figures were more estimates than anything else. Several factors had been omitted, and the other calculations Damien mentioned just confused her. But the fact was that she could use the Adamant Guardian Seal to block a full-powered Plasma Carronade bolt and stop it cold.

Once she was done with her preparations, she went out of her bedroom and met the others in the living room. This little foray into the depths had lasted longer than they expected, but it was high time to get it done and over with.

They walked towards the village’s entrance, and there, they found a gaggle of men. Including that rotter who had attacked them when they first arrived.