Vindictive pleasure suffused Yuriko as she saw her Radiant Barrage drive the Primordial Spawn out of its hiding place. The explosions covered her view, so she activated Enhanced Sight. A moment later, she changed to Chaos Sight, then huffed with annoyance when both techniques weren’t able to penetrate the bright lights and smoke.

“Huh?”

Dumbfounded, she saw a strange spike of energy careen from within the cloud and it struck Avos Zarek. She could only gape in astonishment as she watched the Stonetoise Avos’ lifeblood pouring from its split forehead.

“Graaaaaagh!”

“Kishaaaaa!”

Two cries of pain, one from the Avos, and the other, from within the cloud of dust and light. At that moment, Fri’Avgi was nearly out of distilled Chaos and Yuriko twisted the handle and combined the fragments back into a singular blade. She felt the artefact spirit lose control of the varied sunshards that had been orbiting protectively around her, and she caught them with her Anima and reasserted control before they could dissipate. Feeling Fri’Avgi’s need, she sheathed the artefact greatsword back into her Anima to nurse it back from its depleted condition. The miraculous feeling she had over the ambient Chaos disappeared.

Thud!

The tentacled monster, what was left of it, slammed down into the rubble. She could see that most of its eyestalks had been burnt down to nubs, and its skin and muscles were practically charcoal. Still, the central eye was still moving, and the jaw worked open and close, revealing rows of thick blunted teeth.

The eye glared at her, and it spoke low, threatening words, for the last time, “Accursed…Sun… Ancient…you…cannot…will not…triumph…” Then it fell still, and the light left its eye. But…Yuriko wasn’t sure if the thing was really dead, and after what it put her and the others through…

Wssst! Wssst!

She stabbed several dozen sunshards into its corpse and was vindicated when it twitched and roared. But soon enough, the body caught fire and melted to slag, releasing noxious smoke in the process. But at that point, Yuriko was already running for Avos Zarek. The Primordial Spawn’s death might have ended the Restless Underworld, and she checked with Chaos Sight, noting that the ambient Chaos was no longer being forcibly converted to Entropic energy, but the already extant wisp monsters were still there.

She flung sunshards at a corpse chain, drew her Arclight Sword and ran a giant skelly through. She kicked a flaming hound in the head, caved its skull in and doused its flames. The monsters only turned on her when she came close to them, the others were busy feasting on the Avos’ unresisting body. From the whimpers she could hear, Zarek was still alive and feeling every bite and cleaving strike.

“Ancient…you’ve forsaken…the treaty…” Zarek whispered, though its voice was still loud enough that it echoed in the cavern. “I…am...done…foolish child…don’t let…them…take the…core…”

“No! You’re not done yet…” Yuriko yelled as she killed the wisp monsters and swatted them away from the Avos’ shell. “There must be something we can do!”

“No. The Watcher’s strike…shattered my core…I…cannot live…I will…not…live…like this… Please…let…me leave…with…my dignity…intact…”

His voice trailed to a true whisper at the end and Yuriko nodded in acceptance. She moved towards its head, which was bigger than she was tall, and summoned her Implement. Zarek gazed at the forming Radiant Lance, even until she drove it into his body, where the force and heat of the spell spread throughout the rest of it. The stony carapce slowly reddened, then burst to flame, incinerating the remaining wisp monsters still on it. But even with Radiant energy, the Avos’ body was too large and tough, so the process took much longer than she expected. Even so, the first blow to its head cut off its sensation of pain, and Avos Zarek passed as peacefully as the circumstances could permit.

Shaking her head, Yuriko destroyed any of the wisp monsters as she made her way back to the tower. The battle was still ongoing when she arrived, but it was mostly a mop-up at this point. The monsters didn’t retreat, and in fact, didn’t even seem to feel pain or fear, but without the Sorcerous Working supporting them, they eventually fell.

She noticed several mutilated bodies of people, and in fact, she saw one of Riley’s marines hacking one to bits.

“What are you doing?” she yelled at him. The man startled and stared at her, stunned.

“They’re…they were reanimated and possessed by the wisps,” he stuttered out.

Yuriko’s anger reignited and she wondered if she could actually bring back the spawn and kill it all over again. She lamented being unable to kill it back in the True Refraction. This would not have happened otherwise.

She felt herself too weary to do more than glare in the spawn’s direction, so she just nodded to the man, who looked even more flustered as she walked past. Perhaps she should have found it odd that some of the warriors were on the ground rather than attacking from above, but perhaps some of them hadn’t been with the group when the attack came. She jumped up towards the tower’s first-level platform, finding her friends there. Braden and Orrin where were hugging, the latter’s antennae waving about excitedly.

“At least it won’t be hard to tell them apart now,” Gwendith observed from behind Yuriko.

“Huh, what do you mean?” Yuriko turned to ask, only for the other girl to tackle-hugged her.

“I was so worried…” Gwendith muttered as she buried her face in Yuriko’s bosom.

“I’m fine,” Yuriko said, patting her friend on the back. “Asami’s fine, too, and despite the changes, Orrin’s the same.”

“Yeah…”

Heron walked up to them and awkwardly patted Yuriko’s shoulder, “Thanks for getting them back.”

“I wasn’t about to leave them,” Yuriko protested.

“Yeah.” He grunted, then looked towards the Avos’ burning corpse. “It looks like things have changed for the worse.” Even as he spoke, the earth rumbled and more fell on top of Zarek.

“The Avos spoke about a core we must protect…” Yuriko frowned. “But then, it said that its core was broken so it couldn’t survive. I don’t get what he meant.”

“Perhaps it was talking about a different thing entirely?” Heron asked, “Ah, who are these people, by the way? I know they’re Imperials from the uniform, but they’re not from Agminis or Vagaris, I think. And how did they even get here?”

“My cousins and aunt are with them,” Yuriko said, nodding towards the upper platform. “Let’s go talk.”

Gwendith sniffled a few more times and moved back. “I’ll take care of things here for now.”

Heron and Yuriko climbed up the ladder carved on the central support post and arrived upstairs in short order. Cousin Riley and Aidan, as well as Aunt Layla, were in conference with a few middle-aged men and women who had officer’s sigils on their coat lapels. Aunt Layla noticed her immediately and waved for them to join.

“Yuriko! I can’t really say this is a surprise since this was where you were headed, but I think our presence was unexpected?” Aunt Layla said with forced cheer.

“It’s been a while, Aunt Layla. Riley, Aidan.” She nodded to each in turn. The other people in the circle eyed her with clear interest, but neither Layla nor the brothers introduced her. Instead, the four of them formed a little meeting of their own.

“What were you doing down here?” Aidan asked. “We’re here by accident ourselves, though maybe this was through the Threads of Fate’s guidance.”

“Aye, you come in a mixed company, too.” Riley said pointedly. “You’re running with your enemies now? Federation troops and what, civilians? Private guards, mercenaries, or adventurers?”

“Ah,” Yuriko chuckled. “Circumstances forced us together. The civilians we rescued…”

She told them about the nameless, how the leadership of the city-states sacrificed their own peasants to the Chaos Lords, and how Lucian’s group suspected something was wrong and quietly escaped.

“That’s monstrous,” Aunt Layla said, “but not really unexpected. Some of the Chaos Courts offer rebirth and salvation, but it’s always at some kind of cost. No doubt the courts around Rumiga extract a hidden price from the Federation, but I guess those fools were desperate enough… It’s not as if the Empire was constantly pushing for their territories. Rumiga plane is practically the bottom priority for expansion by the Legions, so nothing would have happened for a long, long time. There are far too many battlefronts. Why, on the Xylarchy planar borders alone, there are nearly two dozen contested frontier planes!”

She coughed into her hand and continued. “Our mission, the temporary legion’s mission, is to bring this Beacon to the surface, as close as possible to the Chaos Channel in Rumiga City. Activating it will generate an alternative Waypoint path through which the legion armada can use to bypass the blockade and reinforce the Imperial forces here.”

Yuriko blinked in confusion. “But Finan managed to enter the plane through the Faron’s Crossing Tidelands. Can’t the legion armada follow that path?”

Riley arched an eyebrow. “The prince? The 29th Pia’Vasi is aboard a Chaos ship so advanced that it could run any kind of blockade. Do you think all of the Imperial armada’s ships are of such quality?”

“Oh.”

“Right. Well, this was such a mess,” Riley spat disgustedly. “We were mentally coerced by that Avos to remain in the vicinity to guard him. I don’t remember how much time had passed, but we need to reach the surface as soon as possible. Your mission…” he frowned, “I feel that it’s a wild chase. Who knows what’s really behind that portal? Yuri…your hunches…are they based on knowledge or your whims?”

Yuriko glared at Riley, who wilted slightly and backpedalled. “Alright, I’m sorry.” Then, in an undertone, “You women and your intuition…”

Yuriko sighed. “I’m not sure if we can reach Synkrasia anytime soon. The city is locked tight by the surrounding outpost cities. The one where we came from had a Knight-Commander level Red Femorant Queen within a Chaos lake.”

The three of them exchanged looks, then Riley said, “Do you need our help? We three can come with you.”

“But what about your mission?” Yuriko protested.

“There’s still nearly a hundred crew members and marines,” Riley said, but Aunt Layla interrupted him.

“No, we’re most of the Knights in the remaining detachment. We can’t let them travel up to the surface while understrength. The Beacon is too important.”

“Then maybe Aidan and I…” Riley began.

“Nope.” Aunt Layla shot down his suggestion immediately. “I’m sorry, Yuri, but you’ll have to continue with your group for now. We can actually send a few scouts with you. Ten marines is something we can spare.”

Yuriko nodded. “That’s very much appreciated. Um…if you can bring the unawakened with you to Faron’s Crossing? I think it’ll grow too dangerous once we cross the portal. I don’t know what the iarvesh level there would be.”

“Fine.”

For the rest of the day, the varied groups gathered themselves. There were the lamentations of the bereaved. Anger and fear were prevalent in Lucian’s group, and he asked for asylum for his group from the marines. Layla accepted their request, and they would leave tomorrow after treating the wounded and getting their bearings.

Yuriko spent the rest of the day in meditation as she slowly came to grips with her shortcomings. Many of those she wanted to protect were killed. Even though Gwendith and Heron reassured her otherwise, that the monster attack wasn’t her fault, she still blamed herself.

Still, she knew that guilt and grief would only detract from their current struggles so she took the time to settle things in her mind now. And to add to her worries, she didn’t know what effect an Avos’ death would have on their eponymous territories. Already, the cavern felt shakier and much more perilous.

The next morning, with the entire group split in two, they prepared to go their separate ways. Yuriko walked up to the ashes of Zarek’s corpse, intending to pay her last respects…

“That’s a tunnel, isn’t it?” Yuriko murmured. It was situated right underneath the Avos’ body, and Old Imperial words had been freshly etched on the lip. “To the planar core. Synkrasia.”