“What happened here?” Yuriko gasped. She had expected a city much like Cerkala. Well, probably more like the previous one, but this?

The tunnel opened up into a cavern, except that the middle of it…well, collapsed. There was a giant mound, and from the centre, she could see more dirt dribbling down. Slow and steady. Inevitable. Dirt, sand, rocks, and water, would eventually cover the entire underground city, and then nothing of this place would be left.

The tunnel opened up at about a third of the height of the cavern, so they had a wide view of the ruins. A good view of the skellies, too. She could see hundreds of them concentrated towards the middle of the pile, digging. Enhanced Sight gave her the details. Each skelly picked up a boulder, or an armful of dirt and sand, then trod off towards the base and tossed it off. They moved steadily, but also quickly. Moving faster than a group of human miners would be able to.

And then, she saw Femorants crawling out of a tunnel off-centre. The skellies were slaughtering them as they crawled out. The antmen didn’t even try to gather their numbers before trying to create a beachhead. No, it was a steady trickle of creatures, slow enough that each one was killed and their bodies transported away before the next one came out and got killed in turn.

But what were they looking for under there?

“Lady Yuriko,” Lucian said as he strode up next to her. “It looks like we’re going from flames to even more flames. It’s only a matter of time until we’re all cooked at the rate this is going.”

Yuriko snorted, “Then what are you planning to do?”

“I think…” he sighed. “This is more than I expected on my return. Synkrasia is blocked, and none of these ruins hold anything but death.”

“You want nothing more than salvage?” Yuriko noted. “I remember you and your crew bringing away dozens of relics.”

“Yes, our share of the treasure.” He laughed softly. “And being used by those fools now. More fool I, for giving it to them.” He chuckled sourly. “Going down here was a mistake. The war on the surface is another one.”

Yuriko raised an eyebrow. “Your people started this fight.”

Lucian turned to stare at her incredulously. “We started it? The Federation of City-States of Rumiga lived in this plane for a century longer than your Empire.”

“And we were content to hold what land we could,” Yuriko shot back.

Lucian laughed. “No, you didn’t. The only reason your nation had not swept ours away is that your leaders were divided amongst themselves, and your real leadership were several planes away, with no care whether this one remained in their grasp.” He snorted in derision. “The only reason the Federation continued to exist was that we were too much trouble, too strong to defeat with the forces you do have on the plane, but weren’t worth mobilising more from the others. And now…those foolish leaders of ours allied with a force that would require a response from the greater Empire.”

“Those forces, the Chaos Courts?” Yuriko shuddered. “They’re just using your people. Their leader intends to subsume the plane, and use it to fuel his ascension. He’s just using you as a distraction…”

Lucian froze for a long moment, then cursed. “I can’t believe that. Then, maybe they weren’t fools but subsumed. Maybe they had been replaced by agents of the Chaos Courts instead…” He laughed sourly. “But…I…” He looked at the ruins, and at the skellies and Femorants, “I don’t think we should be talking about this now.” He pointed. Skellies were grouping up and were moving in their direction.

“Uh, yes. You’re right,” Yuriko said. “Let’s find a secure place first. Seran…” She called the marine scout team leader. “Do you think you can lead us to my cousins?”

Seran nodded, “I still feel the beacon with my technique. Let’s move.”

The falling rubble spread out from the cavern’s centre, and the city centre looked nothing more than a giant pile of broken rocks. The earth and stones spread out towards the rest of the city, and from the half-buried structures, perhaps the ones in the midst of the rubble didn’t collapse.

Seran led them towards the right side of the city. The area sloped towards the centre, but was filled with little hills and valleys which gave them some cover. They moved to avoid the skellies and Yuriko worried that if they had to fight, the rest of them would be alerted. There were thousands in the city, as far as she could see. And undoubtedly, there would be thousands more at the far side.

Seran stopped on top of a rubble hill. He glanced to and fro, then said, “The beacon is below us.”

Yuriko expanded her Anima perception, threading through the small gaps enough so that she only had to permeate through solid earth for a few inches at a time. It was barely enough, but she detected a flat shape underneath. The building they had taken shelter in, Yuriko assumed.

Still, she couldn’t penetrate past the roof since it was at least a pace thick. She spread her awareness around the area but couldn’t find any traces if they dug themselves out.

She began to dig a tunnel and was about to ask the others to help, but Seran said, “Wait, they’re not here. I can see traces.”

“You do?” Yuriko frowned as she looked around. There were footprints on the loose dirt, sure, but half of them were probably from their own group. But then again, she remembered her childhood friend, Krystal, whose Facet could trace Animus usage through the air and follow it. “Is it your Facet?” she asked curiously.

“Well, yes. But the beacon is a simple Animus technique. It allows me to mark a place and I’ll be able to retrace my path back to it as long as I keep the technique active.”

“Oh. That’s useful.” Yuriko tilted her head and said thoughtfully. “Do you think you can teach it to me?” Maybe that would help her directionally challenged condition.

“I don’t see why not,” Seran said while his cheeks faintly coloured.

“Only if it’s alright!” Yuriko said hastily, suddenly aware that her Mien was bending his thoughts her way. Keeping the troublesome Mishala Mien held back was like holding her breath. Sooner or later, she’d have to release it. And when it was active, it was as natural as breathing.

“I don’t mind. It’s something the legion taught anyway. To all scouts.”

“Thank you.” Yuriko smiled, prompting the man to blush even harder. “Ah, follow the trail, please.”

“As you command.”

“I smell ants,” Orrin suddenly said, his antennae stiffened and pointed towards the city centre. “They’re finally marshalling together.”

There was a ridge between them and that direction, so he couldn’t have seen them. Smelled, he said… Yuriko’s eyes focused on his antennae, and all at once, she felt guilty for bringing him along. Guilt for being unable to protect him.

Still, she somewhat knew that those were misplaced sentiments, so she pushed them to the back of her mind, probably where Damien was sleeping. She felt him grunt, but then, she had the impression that he just turned over and kept on napping.

She walked toward the ridge and carefully lifted herself over to take a peek. Behind was another ridge, so unless she floated up higher, she wouldn’t be able to see. But she noticed Orrin fidgeting and had his body oriented towards where the Femorants were. He took a stiff step towards that direction before he shook himself and stepped back.

“Shouldn’t we go?” Lucian asked pointedly.

“Yeah,” she agreed and they followed Seran’s lead.

They skirted around the central mound, taking the long way around the city. Seran’s eyes glowed red with Animus and his head turned this way and that. He paused and scrunched his nose every now and then, looking in different directions before finally deciding on one.

It was a pity Yuriko’s Chaos Sight was unable to see inlay patterns within someone’s Anima. She would have loved to decipher useful techniques like that. But, well, she was unable to do static inlays now, and even if she was taught the pattern, she’d have to convert it into a dynamic inlay. For tracking techniques and waypoint marking, the effort should be worth it.

Seran paused when they came upon a stream. It was coloured oddly, probably due to a mix of red earth and mud. It was roughly a couple of paces wide and meandered towards the cavern wall. There were backed-up ponds downstream, where the water met with a boulder, or maybe a building before the stream diverted sideways. It was an easy enough jump, complicated only by the fact that the group had several injured members.

The scout marine who had broken her collarbone, Faline Remdall, was wincing with every step she took. She might have trouble leaping over the gap.

Yuriko approached the stream, thinking to gauge its depth, but the moment her Animaperception touched it, she froze and gasped. “That’s not water.”

It smelled of rotten meat, but it was subtle, mixed in with the mud and earth. The stench of the skellies, and the weird stink the Femorants gave. Especially after she burned or melted them down to slag.

“Not water?” Asami murmured as she knelt beside the stream. The others in their group, the Federation explorers and the other scouts, paused and looked around warily.

Asami touched the stream, and when she withdrew her finger, the liquid clung to her skin, dripping down her fingernail as though it were syrup. “It feels like blood…but why isn’t it coagulating?”

Yuriko looked upstream, but wherever the source was, it was concealed by the cave-in. The headwaters seemed to come out of nowhere actually. Curious.

“We should continue on,” Seran said. “This doesn’t really matter to us now. It’s not human blood, that’s for sure.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t,” Yuriko agreed as she gestured for him to cross. They continued on their way, but then, as they circled around the mound, she could hear the sounds of battle.

Up ahead, the air lit up with Animus lights. A bolt of plasma shot out from behind a hill. Then, a crumpled armoured form flew over the crest and tumbled down the hillside. From the left, a squad of skellies charged around the corner and climbed up the hillside. Another group emerged and caught sight of Yuriko and the others, then moved to attack.

Yuriko conjured a handful of sunshards and sent them towards the attacking skellies, even as she asked Seran. “Is that where the trail leads to?”

“Yes!”

Having sent the sunshards to attack, Yuriko barely paid attention to the skellies. Up until the point when one of them smacked her sunshards away and proceeded to charge at her.

Charge. The things were running. They hadn’t before!

Yuriko’s attention fully snapped to her assailant and stepped into its reach and stopped the chopping sword from hitting her by blocking the creature’s wrist. The force of its attack sent ripples down her condensed aura, and the skelly slammed its shield at her.

Grunting in anger, she sent the sunshards to strike at it from behind and managed to score a hit. The shards threaded under its neck guard, then went down into the armour, slamming into ribs and vertebrae before they struck the crystalline shard that was the centre of its being. The armoured form collapsed into a heap.

She barely had time to react to the next two attackers, but she managed to avoid getting chopped or skewered. She drew her Arclight Sword, ducked under the swing and jabbed the blade under its cuirass and released an Arclight into its ribs. The resulting explosion of energy and heat tore the creature’s armour apart and staggered the other one.

No sooner had the first one succumbed than another came towards her. With her perception aura, she could see the rest of the group had drawn the attention of dozens of skellies, and they were just as skilled and powerful as the ones she just fought. How?

Gritting her teeth, she called Fri’Avgi to hand and set about dismantling the monsters. Then, out of the corner of her eyes, she saw one of them rising from the bloody stream. It was built nearly twice as large as the others, and it had an enormous horn sticking out of its helm. Its fiery eyes swept across the group, and Yuriko could see each man and woman tremble as the gaze passed them.

Then, it met her eyes, and she saw it flare with malevolent rage.