Book 12-8.2: An Invitation

The Bresian soldiers dug into the corpses' torsoes, into the ribs and probably towards the heart. Yuriko's perception caught most of it, though she still couldn't press up against the people without alerting them. She noticed how Lieutenant Coinoch flinched whenever her Anima became denser, though she didn't know why. She also noticed him detecting Saki while she was shrouded. She informed her Shadow Guard, of course, and only received a frustrated growl from the older woman.

They'd only travelled five leagues since she agreed to accept Bresian hospitality. It was a good fraction of the distance they needed to cover after only going on for an hour or so. The soldiers made quick work of the butchering, though it didn't look like they were after meat. Gwendith agreed to it simply because all of them were curious about what the locals found valuable.

Were they harvesting the beasts for profit like she and the others did back in Faron's Crossing? Were there Chaos dust or shards within them? Neither she nor the Chaos Lords actually detected more than a minuscule amount of Chaos within the creatures, and those traces vanished almost as soon as they died. Certainly not worth the effort of trying to keep the beasts alive long enough to extract the Chaos. Yuriko could probably convert some of her Radiant energy into Chaos if she needed to.

There was the faster expedience of letting Desire or Devotee do that, however. All she had to do was feed them her Animus and they made it into Aspected Chaos. That energy devolved to ambient Chaos if it was released into the atmosphere for a few minutes.

Hmmm, she wasn't sure if that would happen here though. There was barely any ambient Chaos in their surroundings and the farther they went east, the thinner it became. She suspected that by the time they reached the borders of Bresia, they would be at zero iarvesh.

As for why she thought that…

She focused her gaze on Lieutenant Coinoch, and more specifically, on the relics that he had on his person. On all of them, actually. Pinned on his left chest was a golden eagle clutching an orb. Some kind of force or energy, she wasn't sure what, swirled around it and projected something akin to a Protective Field. Any ambient Chaos mote that came close to it was repelled.

Since she couldn't examine it with her perception closely, she had activated Chaos Sight to check the runescript formations on it. But as she expected, they were well hidden. She'd need to examine the relic closely to figure things out.

What was more interesting for her was how the soldiers used their techniques. She couldn't quite believe it but Gwendith and Saki also made the same observation. The soldiers were using Sorcery. A strange, weakened, or perhaps greatly refined version, she was sure, but it was Sorcery. They were using the energies around them rather than Animus within.

She had an inkling why, though if she had not been to Irvalla, she wouldn't have made the connection.

Did the lack of ambient Chaos mean that creating Animus for themselves was impossible?

'Hmmm, he said Shattered Realm to refer to the Chaos Sea, right? Did that mean…?' She couldn't jump to conclusions but the idea lit like fire in her mind. Did the storm toss them all the way to the edge of the Chaos Sea? She didn't even know that there was an edge! This was… big! Momentous, even! Oh!

Uhm, she'd actually have to get home to break the news. Yuriko felt sour at that thought. How long would it take? A century if they just travelled across the Sea, though there was no telling if more temporal or spatial storms would beset them. According to her bad luck, it was likely that they'd get swept into another storm as soon as they leave, and come out even farther from home.

Like it or not, this place, and wherever she and the others may end up, would be home for the foreseeable future.

Unless she found a portal hub. She was sure, with Fri'Avgi, that she could open a portal that would lead them back to Siderious pretty easily. The artefact greatsword was the key.

Once the soldiers were done with the harvest, one of the human soldiers approached the Wind Darter and handed a pebble to Gwendith. The rest of them mounted and went back into formation, then continued on their way.

Gwendith came up to Yuriko and presented the pebble. A preliminary inspection had her frowning. The pebble wasn't a Chaos Shard, obviously, but it wasn't totally devoid of Chaos. Only a tiny bit of it consisted of that, while the rest looked like congealed blood, earth, and some other aspects that took her a bit of time to decipher.

Metal?

By that time, they were more than three longstrides away from the corpses, but soon enough, they were attacked by another pack. She watched as the soldiers on the left flank unleashed their attacks. The Sha'ledras used their javelins while Lieutenant Coinoch used a spell to conjure a reddish orb that exploded into flames once it hit one of the beasts. It still wasn't enough to kill a single beast, but it weakened them enough that the javelins cut a swath through them. Yuriko sliced the remaining pack hunters afterwards.

She examined the corpses with her perception as the soldiers cut up their torsos for the pebbles. This time, they didn't give any to the ship, though one of the soldiers said that the division should happen later at camp.

By the time dusk came, they had travelled no more than twenty leagues and had fought a dozen times. The grand total of beast pebbles ran up to a hundred and eighty-seven. Lieutenant Coinoch gave a hundred of them to her.

"You've claimed at least half of the kills, Lady Davar," he said seriously. "I would give you more but protocols dictate that no more than two-thirds of beast cores reclaimed with the aid of foreigners should go to them."

"I don't mind," Yuriko answered. The pebbles–beast cores–actually looked pretty. The differing materials and elements that made up the core gave it multiple hues that twinkled brightly against the campfire.

The campsite was situated in a shallow valley, with the Wind Darter parked across the way. The space was narrow enough that the ship blocked one of the entrances. Of the hills that made its sides, one had a gentle slope that made for an easy climb to the ridge while the other looked like its side had been quarried. When Yuriko pointed it out, Lieutenant Coinoch said, "The wastelands transform over time, creating vistas that look artificial, but are otherwise natural."

Considering that Fysallis in the Chaos Sea acted the same way, Yuriko simply accepted the answer, which surprised the young man.

A bit of trouble arose when the rest of Yuriko's crew came out of the ship.

"Chaos elementals!"

The outcry came from the soldiers, one of the humans. And almost at once, each soldier drew their weapons and readied their combat spells. Expressions on each face were that of those facing their death and doom, yet most looked resolute. Lieutenant Coinoch and one of the Durandir, were the only ones who had not panicked.

"They are mine," Yuriko said simply and the very air reverberated with her power. The wave of Radiant energy that came with her expanding Anima stuffed the spells that were about to form, and her kinesis forced down the weapons that had been raised.

"At ease," the Durandir woman said, prompting an annoyed side glance from their nominal leader. But Coinoch didn't act on the annoyance and simply repeated the order.

It took a long moment for the soldiers to comply. It was Corporal Ortiz who broke the tension.

"The stew's boiling over!" he yelled as he hopped towards the cooking fire, his hand claw grabbed the spatula and stirred furiously. At the same time, Yuriko noticed he tried to cast a spell, but her Radiant energy got in the way. "Why isn't it working?" he yelled.

Snorting in amusement, Yuriko lifted the stew pot from the flame and placed it on the iron tripod set nearby. Ortiz looked at the floating pot in confusion, which quickly turned to awe. That didn't stop him from claiming the first bowl, however, much to the consternation of the designated cook.

"Oi! That's mine by right!" The Sha'ledras woman yelled as she tried to grab the bowl off Ortiz. The birdman stuck out his tongue and leapt off the ground, expertly transferring the bowl to his prehensile feet.

Amidst the woman's growls and grumbles, Yuriko retracted her aura and the rest of the soldiers relaxed. She gestured for Coinoch and asked, "Will that be trouble?"

The Lieutenant stared at Desire and Devotee for a long moment, then shook his head, "If they can keep their Chaos contained…no, they will have to wear a restrictive cuff if they wish to enter Bresia. I apologise, Lady Davar, but I did not know you have bound them to your service. Even so, the laws are strict when it comes to Chaos."

"Why?"

"Huh? Why?" He looked at her strangely, then muttered, "Have they been wandering the Shattered Realms for too long to forget the Accords?"

Not wanting to expose too much ignorance, Yuriko simply shrugged and let him come to his own conclusions.

"I'm sure you well know that Chaos corrupts and kills, right?"

"Of course," Yuriko answered. But Chaos Lords don't shed enough Chaos to hamper normal folks. It wasn't as if they brought Chaos as dense as the Sea with them. Even now, Desire and Devotee only shed a little bit of ambient Chaos, barely enough to raise the iarvesh level around them by 0.01. "And where will we get these…restriction cuffs?"

"Ah, there are some in the outpost." Coinoch rubbed the back of his head ruefully. "They are not that costly, but I don't think the captain will give them out for free."

"I don't mind," Yuriko laughed.

"Well, I think the beast cores you have will be enough to pay for them and I doubt that these will be the last time the Twisted will attack us."

The rest of the evening was pleasant enough. The soldiers' food was leagues better than dry ration bars. Gwendith and the others introduced themselves to the soldiers, who did the same. None of them bothered Yuriko, however, and the only one who approached her was the Lieutenant.

Still, he didn't speak much unless she spoke first. His posture was stiff, but nowhere close to the fear the other soldiers displayed.

His proximity gave her the chance to examine him, however, and aside from a robust physique, toned from constant exercise, there was not much else that was strange. From the way he moved, and the way his body reacted and affected the environment, she was certain he was not using any kind of kinetic arts as she did.

Yuriko's current physique was enough that if she didn't disperse her weight and control her strength, the ground beneath her would shatter if she so much as took a step.

Cillian Coinoch had an average physique that was comparable to Heron's back when he was a Novice.

So how was it that they were able to cast spells with ambient Chaos? Or rather, with the ambient energies in the atmosphere.

Yuriko returned to the Wind Darter and allowed every runescript formation to empty and power down. As the ambient Chaos and Animus dissipated into the air, it cleared the space around her enough that she was finally able to see more than a glimmer of the ambient energies.

She closed her eyes and felt with her perceptive aura, which she carefully kept free of Radiant energy.

During her ascension to the Transformation Stage, she had infused what would have been the Ennoia of the Four Phases and Elements into her Ennoia of Radiant Flying Swords. While that did not allow her to touch upon those elements, it still gave her the ability to sense them. Faintly.

And when the interference from the ambient Chaos and Animus faded away, it was like a foggy haze had been lifted from her perception.

And all around her were thick strands of elemental energy. Fire. Water. Wind. Earth. Others that were hidden from her sight, and the ever-present Radiant energy.

And around each of the soldiers was a thick strand of elemental energy, touching them in the same way that an Ennoia would.