“Why are they empty?” Gwendith asked from inside one of the buildings constructed along the side of the pillar.

“Empty?” Yuriko repeated.

“Take a look.”

“Huh.”

The building was basically a cuboid, and when she entered inside, it was just empty space. Except…the space wasn’t a cube. She spread her Anima throughout the interior, somewhat thankful that it was smaller than her Anima reach. The chamber was roughly six paces long and about four and a half wide. The lines weren’t straight, and there were extra curves and angles along the other three walls. The ceiling wasn’t even straight!

It was made entirely out of stone, but it didn’t feel like it was the same kind as the stone the pillar was made out of, which she thought was limestone or some other composite material. The building was made out of a more homogenous stone. It wasn’t granite, obsidian, marble, sandstone, basalt, or any other stone she was somewhat familiar with. It was smooth to the touch, and even smoother through her Anima perception.

Her eyes traced the grain and other lines along the wall. While the stone was homogenous, the colour was not. It was all shades of green, grey, and blue. The angular lines seemed to be flowing somewhere…

There.

A corner near the back. She moved closer to it and stared with Enhanced Sight then with Chaos Sight. The ambient Chaos flowed in that direction, but only after going through the swirls in the stone’s grains. It flowed into this spot and seeped into a small aperture drilled into the pillar. She couldn’t feel beyond the walls though, as the ambient Chaos along the walls was a bit too intense. She could dismantle the wall, but she felt it to be somewhat sacrilegious to do so.

Shaking her head at the minor mystery, she walked out of the building and nudged her friend to continue moving up the ramp. Saki and Kassy were keeping an eye out for flying ants, but so far, it seemed they were clear.

Yuriko checked the next buildings. Each of them was empty, but she had the feeling that the interior shapes weren’t uniform either. The subtle differences were enough to take note of, but unless she went back with a measuring tool, she wouldn't be able to tell how much the variations were.

As they spiralled up the pillar, they checked each and every one of the buildings, and without fail, each was empty, was dug into the pillar, and had slight variations in shape and size. Each one focused and condensed ambient Chaos into a corner, which also directed the resulting mass into the pillar.

“It’s like an Animus Engine,” Yuriko muttered as she realised why it looked somewhat familiar. The runescript lines and patterns of the Ebon Horizon’s engine were probably a bit more advanced though, she thought. These ones looked as if they just grew that way, but having a similar pattern repeat over a dozen times couldn’t have been a coincidence. Still, there was little knowledge to be gained by continuing to inspect empty rooms, so they hurried up the spiralling ramp. After more than a dozen circles, they finally arrived at the point where they merged into the pillar.

It was a doorway, empty of an actual door, which led into a small spherical chamber. The floor was still flat, and at the opposite end was a ladder that went up. The walls had multiple runescript patterns, though they were written with the stone’s natural patterns rather than anything else. She was sure those had been inscribed though, from how precise and even the runescript words were. Natural runescript lines were a bit more haphazard in design, and they usually didn’t go in straight lines.

“Animus channel,” Yuriko muttered.

“Is it?” Gwendith asked.

“This is where all of the ambient Chaos gathered by the empty rooms is brought,” she explained, “and from the looks of this…” her fingers traced the runescript lines, getting a tingly feeling as part of the contained energy reacted to her Anima, “they’re moving all of that up.”

“Oh. Well, let’s find out?”

“Right.” Yuriko agreed.

“Should we follow?” Saki asked.

“Yes, please,” Yuriko answered and Kassy nodded, too.

Her attendant scampered up the ladder before Yuriko could say anything else. She followed, staying a couple of paces below Saki, while Gwendith, then Kassy did the same. The ladder felt a bit fragile, so she used her Animakinesis to brace and kick-off against the walls instead. Her reach was more than enough to cover all four of them, and should the thing collapse, she was confident in carrying the others back down safely.

She wasn’t sure how long it took them to climb, but the passage narrowed slightly as they ascended, only to grow wider again after a while. After a few minutes, Saki halted.

Yuriko could see that the passage above was blocked. The ladder went through an opening that was just wide enough to contain it, but no wider. Her Anima perception showed the sides were smooth and even, and that there were no hidden nooks or doors nearby.

“What now, young mistress?” Saki asked worriedly. “Should we try to break through this barrier or go back down?”

“Hmmm,” Yuriko pursed her lips, then decisively said, “Let’s switch places. I want to see if there’s anything beyond it.”

“Of course.”

Saki shimmied sideways and slid down while Yuriko moved up. Then, she had to make herself float towards the centre, securing her position by pressing against opposite sides of the passage. She touched the barricade with her fingers, finding the material to be a different kind of stone, and was just as smooth to the touch. She pushed her Anima perception to penetrate the stone.

Huh. It was only five inches thick, and there were runescript patterns within. Ah, there was also a waist-high console next to the ladder above the thing, which was apparently a platform of sorts.

Perhaps there was a lever or button on the console? Ah! There it was. She pressed a button shaped like an arrow, which turned out to be a mistake since the platform rumbled, and then started to descend. Slowly, at first, but quickly picking up speed!

“Go down!” Gwendith yelled and Kassy jumped off the ladder, with her claws out, and skidded her way down. Saki didn’t seem to have any issues either as her shadows encased her body and she went into a controlled fall. Before Yuriko could grab Gwendith, her friend jumped off and used her Anima and ice daggers to glide down.

Her Anima slowed the platform, and she felt she could actually stop it if she wanted to. However, from the straining Animus lines, she knew that if she did, the runescript lines and mechanism would probably break. So she slowed it just enough to give the others some leeway, and she dropped down the passage like a rock, catching herself just a couple of inches from hitting the ground. The others had already jumped out of the chamber, and Yuriko pushed herself out too, barely in time to avoid getting squished.

“Hie hie! That was fun.” Gwendith giggled as she dusted her pants. She looked over the edge of the ramp then said, “Wanna jump later?”

Yuriko arched an eyebrow and stared at the other golden-haired girl, who had the grace to blush. The pink coming across her freckled face was quite charming, though, and Yuriko didn’t resist the urge to pinch Gwendith’s cheeks.

“Hey!” Gwendith pouted and Yuriko giggled.

Then Kassy threw her hands over both of them and said, “Can I join in on this fun?” she teased. Kassy’s fluffy fur was well within reach, and since she was touching Yuriko anyway, she used her Animakinesis to stroke the wild cat-kin’s ears and furry tail. “Oooh, that’s nice.” Kassy purred.

Gwendith shook off Kassy's arm and stared at the platform, face turning serious, “What is that thing?”

Saki poked her head into the chamber. There was a bit of light there, coming from around the console and at set intervals along the platform’s circular edge. The four of them entered the chamber again, and Yuriko examined the console, with her eyes this time.

Much as her perception could feel movement and the flow of energies, she had a bit more trouble seeing colour and ink. The console was made out of pink veined marble, and the words inscribed were formed from the veins. There were two buttons in the shape of an arrow, though the one she pressed with Anima earlier was still depressed. The one on top of it was raised now. That would probably send the platform up.

She said as much and Saki pressed it for her. The platform shuddered for a moment, then runescript lines on the walls lit up. Since only parts of the pattern were lit up, the meaning… changed.

Yuriko’s eyes widened. No wonder most of the patterns she read were nonsensical! They weren’t meant to be read in whatever order they had been laid out! Only when Animus flowed into the runescript lines was when it should be read. But… how did the Animus know which patterns to light up?

She would have stayed and observed, studied until she understood, but before she knew it, the platform had stopped into another chamber, practically identical to the one below. Gwendith grabbed her arm and pulled her along, despite her feeble protest to stay.

“Yuri, don’t get distracted,” Gwendith hissed threateningly.

“Alright, alright,” she huffed.

Still, her mind lingered on the variable flow runescript, and how she could improve her own art. Her Anima contained several runescript lines made from twisting her Anima. Animus storage. Animus gathering. Adamant Guardian Seal. And finally, a little bit of Animus compression. The last part she wasn’t able to use much, still in the trial stage, actually. But this…revelation. Could she be able to combine runescript function into the same lines? She wouldn’t need Animus gathering once her stores were full, didn’t she? So what if she could change her runescript storage weaving in such a way that when there’s empty spots, it would activate gathering? If she combined the lines, she would have both functions at half the space in her Anima!

“Yuri!” Gwendith pinched her side and she twitched in surprise. How did Gwen bypass her condensed Anima? Anima projections as thin as a needle? Oh!

“What?” she mumbled.

Gwendith gestured, and Yuriko finally looked. Contrary to what she expected, they weren’t outside, on another ramp. Instead, they were in a large, multi-tiered chamber, at the bottom, just off-centre. There was a set of stairs that would lead to the next tier, as well as a door on the opposite end, from which she could see part of the city’s skyline.

Yuriko headed towards the tiered seating while Saki headed to the door. Kassy and Gwendith followed along behind her. There was a partition half wall that blocked the view of the tiers, so it was only when she actually walked up the stairs did she see what was there.

Desks and chairs. And on the desks, dust, as well as a few crystalline rectangles embedded on the surface. It looked similar enough to the crystal tablets back home that Yuriko assumed that was what they were. And when her Anima penetrated the things, she realised that they were, in fact, the very same crystal tablets. The crystal’s internal grains were shaped into a dense jumble of runescript lines that were indecipherable. Given what she saw in the passage, she intuited that the lines would only make sense when only parts of it were lit up.

She fed a bit of Animus into the crystal, and it flickered to life. Words formed over the screen, a mix of nonsensical Old Imperial symbols and runescript patterns. The display blinked and formed strange geometric shapes, then changed into numbers and percentages.

Eventually, the words reformed, and they actually made sense. Yuriko frowned, though, since the screen revealed:

Satellite City Cerkala compromised. Portal Hub Synkrasia access blocked until compromised areas are restored.

That didn’t look good at all.