The Implacable Jade barrelled through the Fysalli, dancing along the edge of its Veil keeping the Chaos ship from being immersed into the Waypoint yet disallowing the Chaos Sea from affecting it either.
It made the operation of the ship harder but it cut down travel time by a good margin. Plus, it kept them away from whatever lurked in the Fysalli. This shallow in Chaos Sea, those couldn't really be that strong, but powerful Chaos Lords and other dangerous dwellers were sometimes known to live in shallow Fysallis and they thrive. For a time, anyway.
Finan Conail Agalmar leaned back on the acceleration chair, his stomach doing flip-flops as the Implacable Jade twisted and rolled to keep within that narrow edge. He could have waited in his stateroom, he admitted to himself, rather than remain at the bridge, but the view of the surrounding Chaos Sea was incredible.
The light cruiser class warship wasn't the fastest Chaos ship he could have taken, but there was little sense in sacrificing safety for speed. Rumiga plane wasn't going anywhere since it was still tethered to Delovine. Half-tethered, he amended. But their enemies would have to dislodge the Gemhearts to free the frontier plane from the Empire and that was no small feat.
As for why he was headed to Rumiga…Yuriko Mishala was probably there.
He wasn't completely certain, and he and his crew had lingered in Ulmira to track her down. He almost tore the hair off his head when he realised that she had ventured into the Sea alone and unprotected, but that also cemented the fact that she was a Knight now, years earlier than she should have been.
It gave rise to an odd feeling within him. She was powerful, far stronger than he would ever be, probably. Courting such a strong woman, and winning her…well, the idea gave him such a thrill of pleasure and anticipation that he couldn't help but shiver. At last, something worthy to do.
He stayed on the bridge until the shaking and manoeuvring subsided, then undid his safety harness and left. He nodded goodbye to Captain Marsha Andreas who barely paid attention to him, focused as she was on their navigation.
They were only a few Waypoints from Rumiga's frontier side Tidelands. According to the charts, there was no Chaos Channel there, so they'd have to delve through the Tidelands. Doing that on a Chaos ship would take longer to cross, so he wondered if he could take his Praetorians and his friends to push ahead.
When he arrived in his staterooms, he asked the question to Draknon and Aerda, who both shook their heads and called him a fool.
"It's an active warzone, Fin," Aerda said. "You're just risking yourself."
"Are we even sure she's here?" Draknon grumbled.
"Well, yes." Finan grinned. "I've several reasons why."
"Do tell," Aerda answered with a long-suffering sigh.
"One, she always spoke about wanting to return home to Rumiga when we played Shatran. Two, I asked for a Fateweaver reading and the results indicated a high chance she went there, and three, her attendant confirmed that was her destination."
"The attendant we picked up in Ulmira?"
"Yes. Ah, I had Swordmaster Kinohara ask the Davar family in Ulmira, too, discreetly, and she confirmed it."
"You're still guessing though." Aerda pointed out.
"What do we have to lose?"
"Time and life," Aerda said. "Rumiga is a warzone now and look at the extent we have to go through to get here. We had to take a long detour around the Chaos Sea just to avoid the blockades and battlezones. Plus, the main Chaos Channel is blocked, forcing us to go through the Tidelands."
"But we end up closer to her hometown," Draknon pointed out.
"Yes, that," Finan said. "I feel it, lads. She's close and…"
He trailed off as images from his memories surfaced. He felt his artefact, Vie'Coera, stirring within his Anima, but he settled soon afterwards.
The Mishala Mien. The way Yuriko affected him was different from how Miya did, or the older members of the clan. He was pretty sure he had resisted Miya's, but he was less and less sure that he managed to do the same with Yuriko's Mien. He was also sure his fiance hadn't mastered using her Mien, yet it was already so insidious that he couldn't tell if he was affected or not. He had been attracted to her the first time he laid eyes on her, and she was exceptionally beautiful.
While Yuriko didn't have a voluptuous figure, looking at her made him feel that those with hourglass shapes were the ones that were overdone. He liked that she was athletic, and was an avid practitioner of the sword, even if he hadn't actually seen her fight for real. He also knew that his tastes had not been altered, since he always favoured strong women.
"He's lost in his daydreams again…"
"Leave him be. We'll be in Rumiga in a couple of weeks at the latest…"
_________
The Radiant Sun's light glinted off the arming sword as Yuriko used it in her practice. She went through the fifty-two forms of the Four Phases as slowly and as accurately as she could, with each inch of movement taking several seconds. The sun was setting in the west and would disappear behind the western Veil within a few minutes. Camp had been set for the night, the first time they'd actually stopped since they entered the mountain pass.
They had just exited the mountain pass, but she couldn't quite see where Horswick was. They were definitely still north of it, and if she wasn't mistaken, the forest that spread out from the mountain's foot towards the Veil was the Shillogu Woods. They were on a plateau roughly fifty paces above the forest and she thought she could see familiar landmarks from here.
The lake where she fought the Seeker for the first time was visible as a glint of blue light southwest. Oh. Perhaps the cave she had found Fri'Avgi in was nearby.
Focus. She had to focus on the movements. She was training after all and she shouldn't let her mind wander.
Gwendith struggled to follow with her slow pacing beside her, while a few dozen men and women worked on their own weapons practice in the cleared space in camp. With her Anima perception, she could see her own imperfections as well as Gwendith's. The other girl also had her Anima flared, and it was close to reaching the Second Growth threshold at nine and a half inches. Even as she watched, Gwendith's clear blue light slowly expanded another fraction and was that much closer to the next stage.
The arming sword wasn't that much different from a side-blade. They were roughly the same length, though it had a crossguard rather than the circular attachment the side-blade had. Since Yuriko no longer used a Plasma Caster, that didn't matter anymore. Ah, the arming sword was double-edged to the side-blade's single, even if the latter was sharp on both edges within a few inches of the point. The arming sword wasn't curved either.
More importantly, the arming sword was runescribed with a battle technique. It came to her intuitively when her Animus flooded into the weapon.
Arclight. The very same technique that the Athrodius used against her. If she fed Animus to the sword, she could trigger it to consume the energy and emit a crescent of light, much like Marron's technique. She experimented with it a while back and discovered that it had a middling range, about a hundred paces at most.
Actually, that was quite far, but nowhere near the ranges she was used to. The runescript lines gave directions on how best to use the technique, by slashing the air in front of her, to create the eponymous arclight. It sped away from her as quickly as a plasma bolt and consumed a bit more per bolt compared to a Caster. In fact, its enhancement was just a bit worse than a Plasma Caster making that one the better-ranged weapon. However, it outperformed the Plasma Lancet, so that was that.
It wasn't limited to slashes though, stabs and thrusts did the same thing, but the resulting projectile was narrower, hence making it harder to hit the target. The precision was better and Yuriko was a competent marksman so it didn't really give her trouble.
More importantly, she could invest Radiant energy into the arming sword and the resulting arclight would incorporate it too. In fact, she could even replace most of the Animus cost and replace it with Radiant, ensuring that she finally had a stable use for the resource after she conjured her weapons. Oh, and she felt that if she studied the runescript structure of the arclight sword, she'd be able to mimic the technique and use it with any other weapon.
She felt Fri'Avgi pulse derisively within her Anima and gave her the feeling that the sunblades were the better choice. But see, she sent back; if she understood how to use it on her own, she could have the sunblades shooting arclights too!
Hmm, but did she have enough of a reserve to spend that much of her resources at once? She had a feeling that her limiting factors were how she used her energies rather than the amount she could access…
After she completed all fifty two forms, Yuriko repeated the practice at speed. She finished in less than a minute, but every form was accurate and precise. She did another round, both slow and fast, this time with her left hand holding the blade, and once she was done, she sheathed the arclight sword and went to her cooldown stretches.
All the while she observed Gwendith's Phases, finding the girl much improved.
"Keep it up," she said once Gwendith was done. "You'll be a swordmaster in no time."
"Oh, you." Gwendith blushed. "Are you one already?"
"No, not yet," Yuriko smiled, "but Swordmaster Kinohara said I was on the right track."
"Oh, how would you know once you reach it?"
Yuriko shrugged. "There's a certification test, I think, but one doesn't become a swordmaster just by prowess alone. There's a teaching aspect too."
"So that's why you're teaching me?" Gwendith teased.
"Well, that and you asked me to." Yuriko grinned.
"Huh."
In truth, Yuriko felt she was still far from mastery. While the sword dances were powerful, she had yet to be able to teach them to anyone else. Maybe the circulation pattern is personal, too, just like the Body Forging. Perhaps if she could dumb the technique down, just like the existence of the basic Body Forging?
Marron and Saki tested the changes rather extensively, and the results weren't bad at all. It was nowhere near the results of Yuriko's own Body Forging, but it rivalled the weaker variants of the Strengthen Physique technique. And this one didn't require an inlay, so it was actually a net positive gain. However, the old Boost technique no longer worked for either of them, neither did Recovery. Only when Yuriko taught them her own version did they regain the use of the valuable techniques.
Huh, she wondered if the Hollow residents know the dynamic Recovery or Boost method. From how their wounds were treated, she didn't think so. But then, she didn't think they even had Animus techniques for healing. They certainly didn't show any, and since they didn't return after the mission, she wasn't able to see what they used.
Yuriko's hair caught on the Animus Armour's bracelet when she finger-combed it, though it didn't take more than a slightly forceful tug to free the strands.
That was another thing she wanted to study, but then, she'd spread her focus too much already.
Dinner was ration bar stew, though this time, the cooks had pulled out the stops. There had been some spice left, as well as some actual meat and vegetables. That stuff came out now, and the stew was absolutely delicious! Although it may be because of the prolonged tasteless food.
After her evening ablutions, she sat down on her bedroll for a bit of meditation. She immersed herself in Radiant light, letting the motes suffuse her from her Essence core and the lingering light that hung in the air. Under the tent, she couldn't see the Luminous Moon, nor did she see the Chaos Streams above.
Gwendith, Saki, and Desire bunked down beside her, but the three of them left her alone while she meditated. Her aura flared out and encompassed the entirety of the tent's interiors, and then seeped out through the thin fabric. The Luminous Moon had just moved from its Full Phase so the outside was rather bright. Her attention was drawn to the Luminous motes dancing in the air. They were markedly different from the Radiant. Colder, but livelier, prone to changing shape and intensity in the blink of an eye. But there was always a regularity to its changes. There was always a pattern to it, one little bit that remained constant no matter how many changes happened, or it cycled through a set number of changes, always repeating the pattern no matter what.
In contrast, the Radiant light was always constant. It burned brightly, unleashing all of its power as fast as it could. However, when more than one Radiant mote came together, they didn't all flare out at once. Instead, the outer motes did that, then fell away from the group, then the next layer flared, then it repeated. All the way until it reached the core and the entire cluster ran out of energy and turned into ambient Chaos. One thing she noticed though, was that often, when the Radiant Sun was in the sky, when the Radiant light hit some of the ambient Chaos, about one in a thousand parts, sometimes more, changed to Radiant motes.
Radiant out of Chaos without going through a Radiant Essence core. What was it within the ambient Chaos that the Radiant touched to make more of itself?
Her thoughts touched one such cluster now. There were hundreds of motes in the tiny speck, and all of them were inert ambient Chaos particles. These were the ones she breathed in and somehow converted to Animus within her core. What was the intrinsic quality here that allowed it to turn into Radiant?
She looked closer and closer, finding nothing but dross. Nothing. But…what if the Radiant came from nothing? What if it was a process rather than a quality? Ambient Chaos, like all Chaos, had the capacity to become anything, even if it took an investiture of Animus and Will to do so.
Will.
Burn Bright And Free.
The cluster was subsumed into Radiant light.