"Great! Another detour. How many are we going to have to go through and how long before we finally make it back home? Fallen Sun, Virgil!" Balliol ranted while he channelled his Animus into the co-pilot's chair.
"Easy there," Sarra said while leaning against the bulkhead.
Virgil snorted but didn't comment. He was the pilot for this round with Amiri as the second co-pilot.
"Sure, we've got another errand to run and who knows how long this would take," Balliol vented his spleen, "I really want to get back to Rumiga. I think I've already missed my only son's training camp results, I don't want to miss bringing him to Agaza too!"
"Balliol, my only daughter is troubled about if she could even enter Agaza since she doesn't know what her Heritage is and I can't be there for her," Virgil growled. Normally he was much more diplomatic but the stress of the past weeks, the danger, and the anxiety…well, he was pretty close to the edge himself.
"Virgil…" Sarra started.
"And whose idea was it to take the Chaos Lord's deal? Huh? We should have just held out in that waypoint and ran back to the plane," Balliol continued.
"We had a greater chance of dying. Did you forget Whisperer is a Marchioness? I'm nowhere near Knight-Commander much less Knight Dominus," Virgil snarled. "Dominus is the minimum we need to even stand a chance against them!"
"Burning Moon! I know, rotting swarm fodder!" A string of curses from Balliol's mouth and a fist slamming against the arm rest and the wind went out from under his sails. His breathing was ragged. "There's a rotting Marchioness near Faron's Crossing, and we are the only ones who know!"
"I know," Virgil growled back. "Except there was nothing we could do. This was the only way I could think of that gave us a chance to return."
"Chaos Lords, well, any Chaos dwellers, are bound by their word. Everybody knows that," Sarra said. "Whisperer promised us a safe passage back to Rumiga should we accomplish her request. It's not even that onerous. Just head to that plane, explore the ruins, and return with whatever she wanted from there."
"And what if that thing is better off in our hands than a Chaos Lord's?" Balliol asked.
The look on Sarra's face turned grim. "Then we'll burn that bridge if we have to."
"That may extend our stay out here, though," Virgil said mildly.
"I'd gladly sacrifice my life if it means my children will live to grow up," Amiri said quietly, startling Virgil.
"I thought you were asleep," he muttered, looking over at her.
"On the co-pilot's chair?" Amiri raised an eyebrow.
"Well. I've done it, too. You don't need to focus to allow the jade studs draw your Animus."
"Huh. I'll try that later. Anyway, how far away are we from whatever that Eye wants us to do? What was it anyway?"
"The Eye or what it wants us to do?"
"The second. I know what Unformed are, Virg." Amiri rolled her eyes.
"It said it wanted us to scratch an itch," Virgil snorted with some amusement.
"And?"
"Break down a Waypoint. It couldn't do it by itself without being forced to take a real form and it's taking up space in one of its favourite regions."
"What kind of Waypoint?" Balliol shook his head. "How are we going to break this one? It's in the Chaos Sea, right, not the Depths?"
"Yes, the Sun and Moon cannot exert power there. We have to find the seed and destroy it. It's an elemental Waypoint or a Fysalli--a bubble of reality," Virgil answered. "What element, I'm not too sure. We'll arrive in a couple of hours. I suggest you rest, Sarra; we'll need your expertise when the time comes."
"Right. See you in a couple of hours." She limped to the bunkroom, leaving the three of them in silence.
"I apologize for losing my head," Balliol said after ten minutes.
"I'm sorry, too." Virgil sighed. "These aren't the easiest times to work in."
"I suppose you did the best you could. I just hope we all make it back home after this."
"Right."
"That is so sweet. Now how about you hug and kiss?" Amiri asked innocently.
Virgil turned around and glared at Amiri. "Shut it!"
"Hie hie hie!"
The Rose's Thorn's forward viewports showed the stream of Chaos slowly giving way to empty space. Air, Virgil thought. The Eye had pointed them in the right direction and formed a channel. There would be no missing the Waypoint.
"What are we getting out of this, by the way?" Balliol asked.
"Whatever we can find there." Virgil looked at him and shrugged. "And I suppose we won't be harassed by the Eye. That's honestly good enough in my books."
Slowly, the Chaos streams peeled away from the Ocean Skiffer. There was a limit to how much further it could travel into the Waypoint and without enough ambient Chaos, it would wither and die.
One moment, they were in the Chaos Sea and the next, they bumped against the Waypoint's membrane. The Rose's Thorn turned and pressed its side against it, latched on and connected the outer door into the Waypoint.
"Rose, power down but remain alert enough to receive us when we're done."
A figure of light appeared on the crystal panel in front of him, a small figure the length of his hand materialised. It was of a little creature seemingly made of flower stems and thorns, forming a humanoid shape with a rosebud for a head. She nodded in agreement.
The three of them unstrapped and walked to the airlock. Craig and Sarra were waiting in the bunkroom. They handed over the weapons though left the backpacks in the skiffer. Virgil slung his Plasma Caster over his shoulder, slotted his side-blade on the left side of his belt and his slug-thrower on the right. He buttoned his forceweave coat and threw the hood over his head.
The airlock door opened with a near-silent hiss. They entered the chamber, the door shutting behind them, and the outer hull doors swung open. Almost immediately, gale-force wind buffeted them, pushing Virgil back. He would have fallen if Craig didn't catch him from behind.
"What in the Radiant Sun?" he yelled. Then realized he couldn't even hear himself with the roar of the winds. The skiffer rocked, but since it was floating in the Chaos outside, the force was absorbed and redirected out.
Sarra's Protective Field abruptly expanded, encompassing the five of them. The force and noise of the wind cut down to a manageable breeze.
"I can't hold this up for long!" Sarra's face was twisted in strain.
Virgil deployed his own Field and saw the others do the same. His Animus reserves trickled out and judging from the drain, he could keep this up for a few hours at most. When Balliol, Amiri, and Craig deployed their Fields, Sarra retracted hers with a relieved sigh. She extended four tendrils to touch theirs.
"We have a couple of hours before I need to recover my reserves," Virgil heard through the tendril.
Virgil nodded and walked to the door. The area immediately outside was pure nothingness, only the wind that blew with such ferocity that it was almost visible. Sweeping clouds passed in front of them, zooming in and out of sight faster than he could blink. Virgil extended his Field around him, focusing on the need to have proper footing.
As he stepped out, a small white cloud appeared under his foot, supporting his weight. He could feel the strain though; solid footing wasn't within the concept of this Waypoint and if he persisted, he would either bend it to his will or he would break. The second one was far more likely.
"Go with the winds," Sarra said.
"Right." Virgil took a deep breath and released his image.
In the blink of an eye, he was swept into the winds. The Rose's Thorn sped away from sight and he was surrounded by white and grey clouds. Virgil spun and flailed as the wind took him. He instinctively resisted but it only made things worse. He could feel the winds eating up his Animus as his Field tried to impose his reality on the surroundings.
Gritting his teeth, Virgil turned his body and retracted his Field as close to his body as possible. He wanted to go with the winds. He needed to find the Waypoint's heart and from there, return it to Chaos. The next moment, he swung past the Ocean Skiffer again, too fast to even see it as anything more than a blur.
He channelled his Animus to his Facet, the one that allowed him to see far, to see things that weren't in his line of sight. He felt the strain. He was far from the Rose's Thorn and if he persisted, too much of his Animus would be consumed. He could feel the strain grow heavier but he kept it at that, neither committing to using his Facet nor retracting his Animus. A few seconds later, he felt the strain lessen steadily until it was nonexistent. The next moment, the blur of the skiffer appeared and left the next blink of the eye.
"Five minutes to go around," Virgil muttered to himself. The tendril connecting him to Sarra had broken the moment he stepped out but he could see a couple of blurs behind him and he thought there were a couple of figures still at the door.
With a grunt, he decided he needed to get things done instead of dawdling. There didn't seem to be any threats other than the strong winds. He angled himself towards the centre of the cyclone, making judicious use of his limbs and webbing his Field between them.
He could feel the winds slowing as he made his way to the centre. The entire Waypoint was nothing more than empty space and a hurricane, Virgil thought. What kind of creature would imagine something like this, or was it purely an elemental Waypoint?
The winds may have slowed down, except he had started moving into a tighter spiral. He felt his guts being pulled to the centre and up and sometimes down. Virgil closed his eyes, but he only felt more nauseated. There was nothing clearly discernable in the centre of the hurricane.
He focused on his eyes, willing his Animus to give him the ability to visualize Chaos. This wasn't a technique that was part of his Facet nor one that he had inlaid. Instead, it was an art taught to him long ago by his wife, then girlfriend, while they were still in Legion Vagaris. The empty space was suddenly filled with a single monolithic colour: pale green. There was so much of it that he couldn't keep up the technique for long and he had to disperse his Animus from his eyes, losing a good chunk of it when he couldn't assimilate it into his core.
"It really is a whirlpool," he muttered. He looked around him, unsure of whether he was looking up or down. The green lights had formed a spiral that moved perpendicular to how he was moving now. The funnel was only a few dozen paces away though if he got caught in it, he'd probably hurl out lunch from three days ago.
Still, there wasn't much he could do. He had an inkling that the Waypoint's core was where the funnel led to. So he screwed his courage to the sticking point and angled his way into the funnel. What followed was an eternity of dizzyingly fast spirals, projectile vomit that painted the sides of the funnel and soiled his clothes. Thankfully, fluids didn't stick to forceweave.
The bottom of the funnel was the only solid surface of the Sun-forsaken place. It was a small island--if he could call a clump of dirt ten paces wide an island. Virgil dropped down on his hands and knees as soon as he made it there. He wasn't alone though.
Balliol was already there, coolly tapping his toe on the earth.
"Took you long enough," Balliol smirked, gazing pointedly at Virgil's soiled clothes.
"That was horrible," he groaned. "How?"
"Hardened air shields?" Balliol raised an eyebrow. "My Heritage is all about manipulating air. What did you expect? Why did you go through the funnel anyway? You could have just avoided the swirl and dove down."
Virgil groaned some more, using Recovery to regain his equilibrium. A few moments after he landed, Sarra managed to make it to the island, staggering when she accidentally put her weight on her injured leg.
"What happened to you?" She eyed Virgil with some amusement.
"He decided to have fun with the funnel," Balliol said drily.
"Let's just get this over with," Virgil said. "Amiri and Craig?"
"They opted to remain on board."
"Ah. Well, what do we have here?"
There wasn't anything on top of the island. They walked to the edge and stepped over it, reorienting themselves until they stood under the island, well, now its new surface. It was empty too.
"It's in the middle," Sarra said decisively.
"I guess we dig," Virgil shrugged.
"Here," she pointed to a spot. It wasn't the middle of the clump, funnily enough, but the thickest part of the lopsided disc.
"Allow me," Balliol said.
He held out his hands, and pale blue knives out of hardened air appeared. He focused for a few moments while his Animus flared and the knives reshaped themselves into spades. He flicked his wrists and they stabbed into the earth, digging and flinging soil into the winds.
Thunk, thunk!
"Harder stone," Balliol frowned, sending more Animus into the spades. When it stabbed down, it sunk easily into the stones and dug them out. Half an hour later and they finally found it: a leaf in the shape of a trefoil. It wasn't any species Virgil had ever seen but he heard both Balliol and Sarra gasp.
"A Chaos seed!" she gasped.
"Of course it is," Virgil said, "those are what's always inside a Waypoint out in the Chaos Sea."
"No, no, you can't feel it since it's not your element," Balliol said, his eyes gleaming. "It's a Chaos seed with an Ennoia trapped within. What a treasure!"
Sarra nodded too. "Well, this is a good prize. But this will set off a storm when we return home," she met Virgil's eyes, "literally and figuratively."
Virgil stared at the leaf. It was barely bigger than his palm and looked so fragile. Precious. What mysteries of the Chaos would it contain?