The process of getting to the Wheelwright was more convoluted than Yuriko expected. First of all, there was no going through the crowd at the docks. Second, Edison needed to contact the boat, and he couldn’t do it while they were in the open. In the end, they trudged towards an inn, which was practically overflowing. They waited outside while the Karcellian mage pushed his way inside and presumably, towards a messenger crane, or some other communication device.

Messenger cranes didn’t work properly here. Well, it could, but the runescript weavings had to include Animus storage, which effectively shortened the construct’s range. Plain paper wasn’t meant to hold that much Animus at a time, and when the weaving activated, the excess burnt the paper. Space for the actual message shrunk to a third of what normally would be available, since the paper disintegrated as it went, and its normal range of a longstride or so, was quartered.

That was to say, a messenger crane could reach the boat as long as she released it near the end of the jetty. Of course, whether it would actually be read by the captain and obeyed was another matter entirely.

Either way, it was a moot point since Edison came back not long after with instructions on how to get aboard. They were to head past the hills west of town and the Wheelwright would send smaller boats, dinghies, ashore that they could take to get to the bigger ship.

“Why don’t we just walk to the ship?” Yuriko commented.

He stared at her for a long moment and asked, “You can walk on water?”

“I can fly, too,” Yuriko said flippantly. “But, ah, I’m the only one amongst us who can do that easily, ehehehe. What I meant was that I can pretty much carry everyone on board, or at most, it’ll take two trips. No need to waste time, yes?”

“I think the captain and sailors would have a heart attack if you did that,” Edison muttered. “Listen, sailors and seafolk in general are a superstitious lot. That is, to say, they don’t hold much faith in mages, warlocks, or other occult resonance users. Don’t ruffle their feathers, please, or it’ll be a long five weeks.”

“Alright,” Yuriko huffed.

It was already late and since there wasn’t any room in any of the town’s inns, or even space in the parks and squares, they decided to leave and head for the hills. The pick-up would occur once Edison signalled the ship with a flare.

“Where do all of these people intend to go?” Yuriko asked.

Edison shrugged, “Possibly across the south. Across the Kamwick Sea, there’s only the Endless Desert of Kama’a. Other than a narrow fertile strip of land, it's mostly barren. Or they could be seeking passage out of Norrinth and into Karcellia.”

“Why are the citizens running from the battle?”

Edison gave her a strange look. “They don't have the means or the courage to fight.”

Heron, walking behind her, snorted. He spoke in Verdanian. “I’m not surprised. Unlike the Empire, their citizenry is not empowered. But still, one would think militia forces would be somewhat effective? These people aren’t fighting for their homeland at all.”

Gwendith poked his side which made him squeal. “We’re only seeing those who fled. Perhaps many times more are fighting.”

It didn’t take much longer than an hour to walk out of the town and into the less crowded hills. However, it wasn’t as barren as she thought. Several campfires were glowing in the twilight. Most of the campers were morose and quiet, but a few, especially those with children, were somewhat jovial.

Yuriko blinked upon realising that those she called children were only a couple of years younger than she was. After all the adventures and battles she’d been through, as well as what she witnessed her incarnations do, she no longer felt so innocent.

They came down to a beach and Edison brought out a device that released a cone of white light. He flicked in on and off a few times, and in the distance, she noticed a similar light blinking back. Nodding in satisfaction, Edison kept the light up as a beacon. Half an hour later, She heard a rumbling hum and two longboats came close to shore. They were crewed by a couple of men in white uniforms with wide, blue, and square collars.

“Mage Matthews?” one of the men called out in Karcellian. “Come aboard! Whoa, there’s so many of you!” he remarked as the entire group strode into the waves.

The water was pleasantly cool against Yuriko’s Anima. Minding what Edison said, she didn’t push herself on top of the waves and merely kept the saltwater from soaking her pants. It was a tight fit, and the dinghies sat low on the water after all of them were aboard. The sailors stared at her, Asami, Desire, and Gwendith, once they boarded. One even grinned and whistled in a low tone. Yuriko ignored them, far more concerned with Desire’s condition. The Chaos Lord was unusually wan and not even a couple of droplets of distilled Chaos had given her much energy.

The boats were turned around, and a dull roar came from their engines, which were located at the boat’s stern. Soon enough, they were moving across the waves at a good clip. The boats weren’t quite heavy enough to disregard the rise and fall of the water. Which resulted in Edison turning a faint shade of green.

A few minutes later, the two dinghies pulled up next to the Wheelwright. It was an ironclad ship, Yuriko realised when her perception aura penetrated past the metal. It was roughly fifty paces long and about twenty at its widest. The metal plates were a bit thinner under the water, but they looked steady. The rooms inside were small, and from the bunk beds, were meant to fit four. But there was barely enough room to stretch hands out without hitting the walls. But the centre of the ship was a largish hold that contained dozens of wooden crates and pallets, each of which was filled to the brim with metal plates and varied tools and knickknacks. She wasn’t sure what they were for, but perhaps they were war materiel?

The captain, a middle-aged man with a long, curly moustache, came up on deck to greet Edison, who then turned around and introduced Yuriko and the others. Captain Smolders nodded affably, but behind his eyes were signs of strain and worry.

Yuriko moved towards the stern and easily found the ship’s engines with her perception. She could easily encompass the width of the ship as long as she stayed in the middle, and about a pace beyond the keel too. The engines came to life, and she gazed in wonder at the inner workings that were so different from Animatech. There were so many moving metal parts, for one thing, and also so easy to foul up with just a thought on her part. Nothing protected the engines from her Anima’s intrusion, and she could manifest kinetic force at any point. Perhaps that was why the sea goers distrusted Animus users.

The ship got on its way and she and the other women were given quarters above the deck. Thankfully, they weren’t berthed into the small cabinets that the crew lived in but had been given space in the officers’ area. The officers themselves had been booted out by the captain, and a dozen women in the group were given four cabins to share amongst themselves. Desire and Gwendith bunked with her.

As for Heron and the other boys, they had to make do with the crew quarters. Heron whined about the fact that he had to enter sideways to even get to his bunk, but that was just the price he had to pay for growing such broad shoulders.

Life on the Wheelwright was…well, boring. There wasn’t much to do. They were guests after all, and there was nothing she or the others could do to help run the ship. The marines were very much interested in the ship’s workings and were quite nosy. All ten of them had picked up a smattering of Karcellian, and so, were able to communicate with the sailors. Many of them formed an easy camaraderie with the sailors, especially once it got out that they served aboard naval vessels, too.

Edison spent the first few days hanging off the deck’s railings. His constant stream of vomit on the sea attracted colourful schools of fish. He groaned when she came near, and waved her away when she tried to make conversation. There was nothing to do other than meditate.

Ah, she could train by swimming. On the third day of the journey, she jumped overboard and easily kept pace with the ship. Only for a few minutes though, because the Wheelwright’s engines stopped, lines, and floatation devices were thrown towards her, as well as frantic calls for her to grab on. From the concern on their faces, she had little choice but to comply, and then was treated with a stern lecture on safety.

Grumbling under her breath, she resolved to simply constrict her body as tightly as she could, and use part of the distilled Chaos she made to reinforce her body and Anima. Her reach’s growth had sped up, and when she actually focused on growing it, it shot up almost to the threshold of ten paces, stopping short only by a single inch. Afterwards, it was stuck there no matter what she did.

As for her Radiant Body Refinement, it proceeded at a steady pace. Increasing by a percentage point every week or so, which was much faster than 0.1 percent a day, back in Rumiga. Strange. Despite the incredibly low ambient Chaos density, her progress had not slowed at all. The same couldn’t be said for Gwendith and Heron, however. Their reach grew by a couple of inches by the third week since they arrived, but then, it stalled out from the lack of distilled Chaos.

By the second week at sea, it seemed Edison had recovered from his nausea and was fit company once more. They continued language lessons and then traded knowledge on the varied runescript and Animus techniques they knew. Orrin inserted himself into the group and as he was the senior runescribe, he had quite a bit to contribute.

Edison’s Animus engraved cards, spell cards as he called them, contained runescript lines, of course. However, the methodology of engraving, the grammar and syntax, and even the way some words were used. The card stock also had hidden runescript patterns within the grain. Most of what she could decipher were all about gathering and holding Animus…or rather, minute amounts of Chaos.

The lines gathered Chaos from whatever source was offered, transfigured it into raw, unaspected Chaos, and used that to fuel whatever working the rest of the runescript patterns were in place.

The one he showed them was the obfuscating charm that had not worked at all with Yuriko’s Anima. Edison was obsessed with finding out why it didn’t and was unwilling to accept her explanation that it was simply an aspect of her Anima and Ennoia.

The ship communicated through a clever device that broadcast voices and code. In such a way, they got updates on the situation in the mainland. Their course went straight southwest, and land disappeared from easy sight by the first hour they left. Most of the news was grim.

The Richmond Confederacy had cornered the Norrinthain army, along with the Karcellian expeditionary forces on the northern coast, and it had turned into an unmitigated massacre.

It was the first time she heard of the magnitude of the fighting. Hundreds of thousands of men fought and died. Not hundreds or thousands. It was mind-boggling to realise that such an amount wasn’t even the majority of either nation’s populace. Imperial Rumiga barely had a million people in it, and the legions comprised just a bit over fifty thousand warriors. That included militia and the nobles’ guard forces.

The massacre of the north forced Norrinth to ask for an armistice with Richmond, and talks were proceeding at the moment. There was no truce while this was ongoing, and the beleaguered warriors were dying by the day.

Not that she had anything to do with this. It wasn’t her war. But it seemed that whatever was calling to her was probably in the vicinity of that battlefield. She wasn’t sure though, as it had continued to be masked.

On the third week of the voyage, and the Season of Fire had well and truly come, they arrived at a narrow point separating the Kamwick Sea from the Inner Ocean. The Daemon’s Passage. And right now, there was a blockade of ships barring their way.