The walk from Synkrasia’s entrance tunnel towards the Avos Court took less time than Yuriko expected. Before, it had taken them two days, but now, despite the upslope, it took them just over a day and a half. Probably since Marron and Saki got a boost from the Basic Body Forging.

She also expected to meet with Avos Zarek to report their success, but only the Stonetoise that led them here was present in the large cavern. Stepanos was his name, and he rumbled his surprise and pleasure at their success.

“I will create a passage for you closer to where your people are,” he said. “Bargain met. Please follow.”

With that, the ten pace tall Stonetoise stamped towards a wall and opened it into a tunnel. Yuriko followed behind the giant creature, noting the five-note pattern of his footsteps idly. The tunnel opened slowly enough that they only need to take a step every few seconds, though they couldn’t just wait until he was done since the tunnel closed up a hundred paces behind.

There was little to do other than let the mind wander, and Yuriko’s thoughts skittered away from the idea that if the creature so willed, he could leave them all stranded underground whenever he wished.

The past couple of weeks had been more of an adventure than she thought she’d have, though it was not without its gains. Her Anima flare increased by another five inches, so she had a reach of one seventy-six now. There was also the impression that the farther her Anima spread the greater the power each additional inch gave her, which only made sense once she thought about it. For instance, before an inch of contraction allowed her to move five Jins at a pace per second, now each one allowed her to carry a fraction of a Jin more.

Gwendith’s Anima had flared out farther, too, at nine inches: a single inch below what was needed to reach the Second Growth Stage. The other girl’s prowess with using her Anima flare grew better too, though she couldn’t really manage to compress it for defence.

It was a good thing Yuriko got the Animus Armour sets. She gave one set each to Gwendtih, Marron, and Saki. Desire couldn’t use it, unfortunately, since she didn’t use Animus to empower her abilities but rather refined Chaos.

The other three had been charging the sets but it would take a while yet to invest two hundred fifty lumens. The armour only needed five lumens per piece, twenty-five total, in order to function but the instruction runescript lines told her that in that case, the level of protection would be weaker.

Most of the trip was spent with Marron and Saki getting used to the effects of Basic Body Forging, and towards the end, they’d acclimatized enough that they could hold their own in a spar with Yuriko.

It took another day to reach the surface, and it was already the 48th Day of Air by then.

“Thank you,” they said to Stepanos, who bobbed his head in acknowledgement.

“The path for your caravan has been opened. Follow it to go south. Your friend requested the route to head to the Imperial pass.”

With that, the creature backed into the cliffside and melded into the granite.

They could see the caravan from here. Yuriko realised when she scaled a tree to check their bearings. They were still in the eastern face of the Zarek, but quite a bit south from where they entered the mountain before. The caravan was a couple of leagues farther south, through a path carved into the primaeval forest.

It took them less than an hour to get back there, and they were hurried into a meeting with the Commander and the rest of the Centurion council.

“Knights Davar, welcome back,” Commander Perry said.

Oh, Saki didn’t attend the meeting, opting to look for Niamh and ready their resting place.

“Success,” Marron said. “The Avos asked for more than a MiJin of shards, he actually asked for five, but settled for a service instead.”

“We’re aware, Marron,” Perry said. “Miss Randal informed us when she returned a week ago, with one of the Avos’ representatives. Are there any long-term consequences to the Avos’ quest?”

“Yes, we found an ancient city underneath the mountain, and there are residents there, human and Chaos twisted. Federation. We may have stumbled on the source of their current non-Animatech.”

“Hmmm, something beyond my jurisdiction,” Perry mused. “And you say the path the Stonetoise created closed up behind you?”

“Yes.”

“Then there’s nothing we can do at the moment. We will include these in our report once we return to Rumiga City. For now, take your rest. Tomorrow, we will proceed.”

Krrrrgrrrrrkoooo!

Yuriko looked towards the cliffside and watched with no small amount of awe as the earth and stone split and moved. A narrow cleft formed as dust and pebbles flung in the air. Trees tumbled and the dirt pushed away.

The Avos Zarek had changed the landscape and was still changing the landscape. Yuriko could feel the ground tremble.

She headed towards her tent, ignored the human bullet that was Niamh throwing herself at Marron, and settled down for her evening ablutions.

That night, she noticed the same five-beat rhythm as the shaking continued, but she wasn’t quite sure what it meant. The next morning, the shaking had stopped, and a brand new mountain pass began just a couple of longstrides from where the caravan had camped. The path was flat and even, which allowed the transports and carriers to move unimpeded. It was now only a matter of days rather than weeks to reach Imperial territory. Finally.

____________

When Braden Cael Foster entered the village hall and saw the towers of paperwork at his desk. He cursed and almost left then and there. Cierra Village was under the control of Haveena’s assault force for nearly a Season now so why was he stuck doing audits and paperwork?

Just because he was an Aneurin student didn’t mean that he was an expert at sorting through the red tape! Or rather, he had been a student. He didn’t think he’d ever get back to Rumiga City and complete his education.

He and his twin brother had been sent home from the Academy nearly two Seasons ago, and a Season after that, Haveena had invaded. Quietly and without alerting Faron’s Crossing.

Accomplished by treachery. By his own family.

He didn’t know what galled him more: the fact that it was Uncle Colin who orchestrated the entire thing or that he and Orrin had been made unwitting pawns to it. The errands, messages, and goods deliveries back in Rumiga City had all been part and parcel of the elaborate coup attempt.

Which had failed. House Esras and House Kinnock were now battling it out on the city’s Upper Ring for supremacy, and the distraction had probably been the point, now that he thought about it.

He hadn’t even realised that they had been in contact with the Council of Judgement, at least until he saw the weapons cache. Then he saw armed men and women storming the tunnels below, and then the Ivalans attacked.

The two of them had been sent back home then, only to find that the plot wasn’t done. Colin Gael Foster was one of the few Knights in the village, and from everything Braden learned in the Academy, it should have been impossible to betray the Empire. But Colin had found a way. He hadn’t shared it with them, simply because there was no need. Braden wasn’t a Knight, hence had sworn no binding oaths to the Empress.

As far as he knew, Uncle Colin had stopped using the power of his Heritage and was now a Spirit Binder like the rest of the Haveenians, though the ‘Spice’ he’d smuggled out of the capital ensured that he kept his Anima strength.

All of that had been revealed when the Haveenians took over, and the Foster Family became the strongest and richest Family in the village. Small consolation.

He trudged towards his desk, ignoring the wordless greeting by an attendant, a girl who was barely older than he was, and a Cierran native. Her name eluded him right now, but he was sure if he focused, he could dredge it up from his memory.

The papers on his desk were records. Taxes, tariffs, imports, exports, as well as travel papers. The village mayor had been imprisoned, but from the records he had perused, that was well and truly deserved.

Mayor Alcott had been skimming the top ten percent of every excise tax, tariff, and travel fees since he’d won administratorship of Cierra several decades ago. Ten percent at least. A further ten to twenty percent had gone to bribes, both on the Imperial side and the Federation side. It was no wonder that Cierra had remained a small village rather than the bustling town it should have been.

Despite that though, Braden definitely didn’t want to be the one to unravel the web of corruption. He’d rather not trace paperwork, find out what had been omitted or changed, and most of all, he didn’t want to have to trace where all the ill-gotten wealth had gone too.

The thing was, all of the administrative assistants had been in on it, so it fell to an unbiased outsider to do the tracing. And most of Cierra’s populace were farmers. The bright kids went off to Rumiga City or went on to become travelling merchants. Nobody else could do it. Uncle Colin could, but he was too busy. His father was just as laid back and lazy as always, and his twin brother Orrin was too busy mooning over Yuriko and was unskilled in going through paperwork, too.

Ever since that dream several weeks ago…

He felt a twinge of desire and longing, but he pushed it down. He had received her letter, too, and he knew she wasn’t in Rumiga. She was safe, that’s what really mattered. But she was also out of reach.

A part of him didn’t care about where she was, and that part wanted to leave Rumiga and go look for her. But the practical part of him said that to try and leave Rumiga now was a death sentence.

In fact, trying to leave Cierra was just as difficult. A couple of weeks ago, warriors from Haveena, mercenaries from Uanna, and more warriors from Kadrac marched into the village and set up barracks and fortifications.

There was talk of deep scouting and plans to cut off Faron’s Crossing from the rest of the Imperial territory. Oh, it wasn’t widely known or talked about, but Braden was in the administration building and he saw logistics reports. An army travelled on its belly and the Federation didn’t have anything as efficient as the Empire’s ration bars.

Funnily enough, that was one of the first things that Uncle Colin had traded away. How to make ration bars. It involved using an Animatech machine, so the knowledge was useless without it. But they had confiscated or bought up every last bar that they could find.

And then, there were shipments of the Federation’s equivalent: Wayfarer’s Bread and meat jerky. Those were currently being stockpiled in the warehouses and he’d seen the movement reports and all that.

There was little doubt that they intended to push deeper into Imperial territory, and since the Wayfarer’s Bread didn’t last as long as ration bars, he was sure that it would be soon.

However, he didn’t know what to do about it.

The day was spent going through the paperwork, making reports, making suggestions and recommendations. After lunch, he was free to train himself. Both he and Orrin were now First Order Journeymen, but without access to Zoi Elixirs, he didn’t know how long it would take to reach Sollus.

Of course, that was when Uncle Colin marched up to his desk and plopped down one such bottle.

“Where?” he asked.

His uncle smirked but didn’t answer.

“There’s more where this came from, but you’ve got a choice too, lad. Maybe you’d rather not be bound to the Will of the Empress and would rather remain free? Think about it.”

He left soon afterwards.

Later, he went back to the Family estate and into his room. He found Orrin seated in front of his desk, with a blank look and fiddling with another bottle of Zoi.

He knew what he was thinking since he was thinking it too.

“Should we really defect?” Orrin asked slowly. Braden shook his head. He didn’t know either.