The innkeeper, the pudgy woman who was at the reception when Yuriko and the others arrived, rushed into the common room and confronted the warriors, yelling and gesticulating fiercely. The woman spoke a mix of her country's language, along with a smattering of Karcellian. The odd word or two mostly concerned coins, foreigners, and rare guests, as far as she could tell.
The uniformed warrior, some kind of constable, maybe, looked a bit shamefaced at the innkeeper's haranguing. At the very least, he removed his hands from his gun's holster. After a few tense minutes of arguing, the uniformed men took one last loaded look at Yuriko and the others before they spun on their heels and left. Yuriko let loose the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. She didn't know what trouble had come to roost, but she wasn't keen on getting blood on her right after she'd just gotten a bath.
She barely tasted the dinner stew, sopping up the remnants with bread. The mouthful of ale in her mug was pleasantly cold, though still too bitter for her taste. It wasn't until she was done that Edison and Levi arrived in the common room, only to be immediately accosted by the innkeeper.
The marines nearby all tensed as Edison listened patiently to the woman's complaints. It was only when he reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a wad of paper money that the woman's irritated expression eased and turned into a wide smile.
Shaking his head, Edison walked over to Yuriko's table. Gwendith, who had sat next to her midmeal, hurriedly questioned their erstwhile ally.
"What was that about?"
He shook his head ruefully, "Trouble with the local constables." He sat down across from Gwendtih while Levi sat next to him. The others from her original party trickled into the common room and found other seats. "It looks like we'll have to leave on the morrow whether or not we secure tickets on the railway. They're getting a bit jumpy with how the Confederacy's ramped up the aggression. I think they're worried Sanctus' neutrality won't protect them."
"Neutrality," Gwendith scoffed. "It's a stance that lets the bullies win."
"Not everyone has the courage to fight," Edison said flippantly. "It's why I changed sides."
His tone made a few of the marines scowl, but since his back was on them, he didn't notice. Levi, however, did, and he tugged nervously at Edison's sleeve. The boy was skittish but always obeyed the older man. He had been introduced to them as a local guide, so she supposed he'd be left here in the morning.
Sure enough, only Edison came with them towards the locomotive station the next morning. She heard him arguing with some sort of official, but in the end, he came back in a huff.
"The ticket price has soared since I was last here. Bloody thieves."
"So what then?" Yuriko asked as they walked away from the station. Edison gave her a sideways glance.
"Do you mind jumping on the freight? There's usually space there. But we'll have to do it a bit farther down the tracks."
"Whatever works. We'll be walking either way," Yuriko laughed. She explained Edison's plan to the others, taking the time to help Gwendith, Heron, and the twins with their Karcellian. After nearly a week, they'd all gained some fluency. In fact, Braden and Orrin were further along than she was.
"Nothing seems to go as planned, eh?" Orrin grumbled.
"When does it ever?" Braden said philosophically.
They'd walked a longstride along the tracks, which were two long strips of metal set on a bed of gravel and secured by wooden beams, before they heard the locomotive coming along. Its speed wasn't that much, and as soon as the passenger carriages passed, they launched themselves on the freight beds. The one Yuriko got to was filled with large logs secured by thick chains. There was also barely enough room to sit. Still, they clambered up the logs and braced themselves as the locomotive picked up speed, and soon, they were going faster than even the Commuter Tram back at home did.
As the wind blew her hair back, Yuriko settled down to meditate and gather distilled Chaos. Desire looked lacklustre and she barely moved other than to go where she was directed. Now that they had several hours where there was nothing to do but wait, she decided to increase her reserves. Her Animus reserves were full by now as well.
While gathering distilled Chaos required her to be in a meditative state, it didn't require as much focus as it did the first time she did so. Well used to dividing her mental focus by now, she absently gathered ambient Chaos using liquified Animus while she examined her Anima's runescript weavings.
A few weeks back, she'd had a few new insights on how to structure her weavings. By layering them, she'd save space as well as increase her outer reserves. Part of the weavings she made allowed her to harvest distilled Chaos while she was otherwise occupied, and while that part of the runescript worked, it had slowed by a hundredfold too.
There was only a hundredth of an iarvesh in this Irvalla Region. Animus recovery and distilled Chaos gathering took a hundred times longer. From her casual observation, the ambient Chaos that she, and the others, breathed out, simply drifted away. As for why the iarvesh was so low, there were two possibilities that they'd come up with. Either the region was located closer to the Firmament, or the planar Veil was much less permeable than normal. Still, according to Edison, people had lived in Irvalla for thousands of years.
And that it was surrounded by an even bigger Outer Ocean. Nobody had crossed it, and all the islands and continents had long been settled. As for the depths of the water, it was so deep that none of the people here could reach it. Given that their Anima level was practically nill…
Also, the country of Norrinth and the Richmond Confederacy were at least a thousand longstrides across each. A single one of them was already wider than Imperial Rumiga. So perhaps the Veil was so far away that whatever ambient Chaos came in through it was dispersed to practically nothing.
Come midday, it began to drizzle. Yuriko glanced up at the darkened skies and ignored the rain. The water sluiced off her condensed aura, which ended a couple of inches from her skin. Edison stared at the hanging raindrops with a slack jaw, and it was only when she gave him a pointed look did he clear his throat and looked away.
"The KRN Wheelwright will be waiting for us in Barda," he said. "That's a merchant steamboat. It'll take several weeks to cross the Kamwich Sea, and then we'll have to hug the Norrinth west coast along the Inner Ocean. Roughly four to five weeks to travel, I'm afraid."
Yuriko nodded. That was a long time indeed. Part of her chafed at the wasted time, but then again, they were practically stuck here. She replayed her memories of the portal passage, and she was reasonably sure that she pinpointed when something had gone wrong. Now, whether it was a defensive protocol of Siderious, or the portal had been unstable to begin with, she wasn't sure.
She consoled herself only on the fact that she could still feel the threads connecting her to her brothers and her parents. If worse comes to worst, she could follow it back once they find and go through the Veil. As for the melted portal left behind, she wasn't sure if that could be repaired, and she didn't know how long it would take.
Her current plan of action was to find whatever it was that drew her here, and then immediately leave. Whether through the repaired portal or through the planar Veil, she wasn't sure. Perhaps there were holes in the fabric of this plane…and if she grew truly desperate, she could use Fri'Avgi to cut the fabric and go through that rift instead. She was loath to do so, as it meant she would have to leave nearly everyone else behind. Not unless she could fabricate a Chaos ship…and the chances of being able to do that in less than a year was laughable.
And so, as she considered all the possibilities, she cursed at her foolish self. But then again, what could she do against a Chaos Duke all by herself? That Femorant Queen was already more than a match for her, and the Chaos Duke was two levels above. Desperation had made her careless, and it had resulted in being stranded so far from home. Again.
No, she thought, perhaps the best way back was through that portal after all. The portal certainly went through Chaos, and as long as it did, she could apply her formidable Will and Intent to influence their passage. She had been taken off guard. That's why they got in trouble.
Consoling herself that way, she noticed that the locomotive had started to slow. The mountain vistas they'd gone through, with all their beautiful pines and rock formations, were behind them, and it was time to jump off.
It took another couple of days to walk from the rails towards the town of Barda. During most of it, Heron or one of the marines carried Edison on their backs. The man was older than he looked, and severely out of shape.
"I'm not out of shape!" Yuriko heard him mutter when she commented on it. "All of you are just perfectly in shape. Superhumanly in shape!" He continued complaining. "I've a few years yet before turning forty, you know. I'm at the prime of my life."
The marine carrying him, Samuel Rose, who was as tall as Heron and just a little bit more muscular, snorted, "That is indeed young." His Karcellian was a bit broken but understandable, "You're more than twice the young mistress' age, however."
"Who? You mean Miss Davar?" Edison blinked owlishly then addressed Yuriko, "Miss Davar?"
"Hmmm, oh, yes. I turned sixteen half a Season ago."
"So young and yet you've mastered your occult resonance techniques! I am in awe."
"Hardly mastered," Yuriko demurred. "Orrin's farther along than I am."
"Only in the traditional Imperial measure!" the boy protested. "You've done things with runescript and your Anima that I can't even imagine."
"Really now…" Edison mused.
The western end of the Arc Mountain Range featured steep cliffs, but the pine tree forest was sparser. It drizzled every afternoon, which turned to snow when they had to climb up towards the snow cap region. Anything below that turned almost immediately to slush.
Once they crossed the last mountain, Yuriko gaped at the splendid view of the foothills, and the sea. It was still roughly a dozen longstrides away, but she could already smell the salt and brine. Little grey things scurried across the waves, ships and fishing boats, she assumed.
The town sprawled across the coast and looked much bigger than Faron's Crossing. She could see the docks sticking out into the open water, as well as a stone jetty that acted as a breakwater. The roads that led to the town were crowded with landcraft and pedestrians. Too crowded.
"Refugees," Edison said grimly. "We might have more trouble getting on board than I expected."
It was still a couple of hours' walk for them, and they made it to the town's periphery before dusk. They pushed through the press of bodies while they rushed to the port. The noise of the crowd blended into a dull roar, and nearly all of them were pressing towards the Kamwick Sea. There was no time to admire the buildings, the parks, or the public artworks, though Yuriko still got a good look through her perception aura anyway. The place wasn't as beautiful as Aerule Garden back in Realmheart, but it would not look out of place in Rumiga City.
There were guards keeping the crowds out of the docks, and when Edison tried to get past, he was shouted down. Yuriko was ready to leap over the fences, but the older man shook his head. "I don't see the Wheelwright. We…" He stopped and craned his neck over the crowds. Yuriko followed his gaze and saw that he was looking at a metal ship that wasn't moored, but one that was anchored a few dozen paces into the water.
"Well, there she is. Looks like we came just in time after all," he said in tones of pure relief.