Although Yuriko was definitely not dressed for flight, that didn't bother her in the slightest. The wind parted against her aura and she stood as if on an immovable platform. Not even her skirt fluttered despite the fact that they were crossing longstrides in less than ten seconds. Well, she was standing upright with her arms crossed under her bosom, Monica Coinoch was flying parallel to the ground and the winds of her passage made her hair and clothes flutter.
The other woman glanced at her oddly every now and then but continued her flight. Yuriko could feel the density of the Elemental Fire Monica used to propel herself. The heat was so contained, as was the light, that nothing was visible to mortal sight, but Yuriko could see it. A plume twenty-five times longer than Monica's height trailed behind her, pushing her forward. The air beneath her was heated to a degree that it pushed against her spread-eagled body, keeping her aloft, but she thought the propulsion from the fire plume would have been enough to keep her aloft if she angled it downwards slightly anyway. Still, this probably meant that Monica could devote all of the thrust to moving forward. They needed all the speed they could muster to reach the spot in the Kerromere Mountains in less than an hour.
The feeling of foreboding that Yuriko had when she touched Cillian's thread in the dreamscape had receded for a moment, but then, almost as soon as she decided to help, the feeling returned, stronger than before. Her mind struggled to come to grips with the imprecations.
Was her touch detected by whomever was holding him captive? Were she and Monica being led to a trap? That was actually an obvious point, wasn't it? Cillian was a Journeyman Magus, whereas his great-grandmother was a True Magus. The cold calculus of war meant eliminating the anchor point was given priority.
When did she start thinking about such things…?
Halfway to their destination, Yuriko extended a tendril of Wind Elemental energy to Monica so they could talk. The woman took one look, nodded, and took control of the proffered tendril. Ah, she didn't directly manipulate the Wind Elemental energy, but through a modified Message spell that allowed two-way communication.
"Yes?"
"I'm wondering about your plan of attack."
"Not much to plan," the woman shrugged. "Find the portal, enter it, then fight our way through. Sneak our way inside if possible, but if the abductors are who I think they are, then that would be nearly impossible."
"How so?"
"Hmm, well, I hope they're the Alcaldes, but I doubt it. For one, those heathens aren't brave enough to hole up in a Chaos Fount, and for another, they're not craven enough to resort to kidnapping. As far as I know, anyway. But they may have fallen far, so I'm not ruling them out. But no, the most likely suspects are the ones who're always plaguing the civilised world. Rapture Ecclesium."
"Raptura Ecclesium?" Yuriko muttered.
The name was reminiscent of Old Imperial flavours but it meant nothing when she tried to translate it in her head. Also, her Bresian wasn't as good as her Wojan. The latter had improved by leaps and bounds, and she had started studying Bresian, which was remarkably derivative of Wojan. She made a guess on who they were though.
"The Chaos Magi Olivia mentioned?"
A place that feared those who wielded Chaos. But then again, the two Chaos Lords were relatively welcomed, as long as they wore the restriction cuffs. But those were more for the public's protection than anything else. So what made these Chaos Magi feared and reviled? The insanity previously mentioned? Elemental Hearts were woefully inadequate to handle raw Chaos, and from the records and journals she read, even full Magi had trouble crossing the Chaos Sea. She remembered Sorcerers had the same trouble back home, though she was primarily unaffected.
If she remembered things correctly, Sorcerers attracted the wrong kind of attention in the Chaos Sea, but only if they were exposed, or used their Sorcery in the open. Were Magi the same?
Hmmm, it wasn't, she realised. The people in Bresia and, she suspected, those of the Arcadia region, were not adapted to Chaos at all. It wasn't just attention they were worried about, but simply the fact that ambient Chaos could and did, bring about dangerous change.
"There are Chaos Magi within the ranks of Raptura Ecclesium, yes," Monica said, "But they're hardly the only ones. The Raptura has existed almost from the moment the Shattered Realm appeared. Perhaps even earlier. High-level prisoners, when questioned, have admitted to having a heritage that spanned millennia. Their manifesto is simply to bring about the Shattering of the rest of the Great Continent, and the realms and planes beyond."
"To what point?" Yuriko asked.
"Who knows? The lower levels don't ask and are zealots. Not all of them are Chaos Magi, but almost all Chaos Magi caught and destroyed were part of the Raptura."
"Hmmm. So why would they abduct Cillian?"
"You mentioned it was probably because of you?" Monica said with a smile. "I do not blame you since Cillian is an ambitious boy, but only you can answer that question."
Yuriko shrugged. "I can't answer that at all. I've been in Bresia for less than a Season, so far. "
"Yet you travelled through the Shattered Realm and arrived in the borderland," she noted.
"A coincidence and an accident, I assure you."
"Well, it is hardly relevant now. Even if they are Rapturists, we must still break into their stronghold and rescue my grandchild. And anyone else who may be their victims."
"I agree," Yuriko said.
That pretty much ended the conversation and they continued flying to the target spot. They reached it less than ten minutes later, but there was no sign of the portal.
They were a few hundred paces up the mountain range and since this was the first time she visited what was essentially the spine of Bresia, Yuriko spent more than a bit of time looking around. It was about an hour or two to midnight, and as it was the 45th Day of Earth, the Luminous Moon had just passed half and was in its Waning. She looked up at the moon, and admired the fact that the Luminous was the same as back home. It was not, however, surrounded by colourful Chaos Flows. Instead, the night sky was decorated by pinpricks of light that the locals, and the Irvallans, called stars.
Because it was darker, the light her Anima shed was brighter and more obvious. Even if she thinned her aura to the point it was almost nonexistent, around her body, Radiant light gathered and glimmered. Which meant anyone looking up could see her, and she was obvious from quite a distance. Yuriko could do little about that though, as even if she retracted her Anima into her body, her physique was laden with Radiant energy, too. Her skin shimmered with soft points of golden light that honestly looked much like the starry skies, and it was only obvious in total darkness. Thankfully.
The Kerromere Mountains was longer than the entirety of Bresia and only its tail end was within the Republic. About a hundred and twenty leagues of it, actually, then it was replaced by the Erithmus Great Lake that took over in dividing the land. Kerromere was fifty leagues wide at the southernmost point but varied in width from thirty to forty leagues throughout the northern half of Bresia. If she looked north, and her gaze followed Kerromere's line, she would be able to see a horrifically gigantic mountain that was thousands of leagues away. It was an Earth Elemental conflux, from what the books in the library said, and was a handy landmark for the locals.
The slopes of the mountain they were on were covered in trees up to a couple of hundred paces above them. That made looking for the Chaos Fount's portal a bit more difficult especially if it was Wood Element attuned. Monica whipped out the map that Olivia gave them, and studied the notes under a light orb she conjured with barely a word. Yuriko floated over and peeked over the other woman's shoulder.
"Are we in the right area?" Yuriko asked.
"Yes, but since we can't see anything obvious, I'll need to cast a Chaos Detection spell," Monica said as she allowed herself to fall closer to the slopes. As soon as she was only fifty paces above the canopy, she began casting a spell. From the number of nodes she went through, it was at least a five-circle spell. Something the True Magus could perform easily.
Above her head, a green orb materialised the burst into a ripple that went over the trees and the mountain. A minute later, the ripple returned and Monica shook her head.
"Not here."
They moved west a couple of hundred paces, then she cast the spell again. They had to repeat it a couple more times before the spell came back with a hit.
"There!"
They had moved over the first peak and were within the range. Monica flew towards a valley, and stopped just outside a cave complex. Yuriko spread her perception inside and found the portal. It was hidden not just by the cave, but behind an illusion of a cave wall.
Monica went inside and Yuriko followed behind. The older women stopped at the illusory wall, glared at it, then snapped a quick spell that forced the Elemental energy to freeze and break apart. It revealed the grey portal a few paces behind it. Without a word, she marched through.
Yuriko followed after a long moment spent dismissing most of her hidden sunblades, and called a dozen over, miniaturised them, and tucked them underneath her shawl. Afterwards, she stepped through the portal and found herself back on the surface of the mountain.
Monica stood just at the edge of a wide canyon, looking down. Yuriko peeked and blinked at the seemingly bottomless depth. The older woman shivered and pressed her fingers on her amulet.
"The Chaos is a lot denser here than normal," she said with a heavy tone.
"Is it?" Yuriko murmured. She activated her Chaos Sight and noted that the ambient Chaos was at half an iarvesh at most. Pretty low compared to Equilibrium, but about fifty times higher than what the locals were used to. "Can you locate Cillian?"
"Let me check," Monica said as she began casting another spell. She stopped a minute later and cursed, "By the divines! The Chaos is too much. I can barely get a sense. The Elemental energy is too wild."
"Do you have a direction anyway?"
"Yes," Monica pointed fifty paces to their left. There was a narrow ramp that went down into the canyon. "That way. Don't try to fly down."
"Why not?"
Monica looked at her strangely. "You're an odd one, aren't you? Can you not feel the Fount's walls? They may be invisible, but you can still make out the restrictions."
She pointed at the middle of the canyon and Yuriko squinted at it. There was a glimmer of something there. The ambient Chaos was thicker in the middle, too, and there were Chaos flows going up and down the ravine. They weren't that thick at the edges, but it was nearly ten times denser in the middle. The flows were erratically expanding and contracting too, and every now and then, Yuriko saw the edge nearly touch the canyon wall.
Well, the flows wouldn't even affect her, but she supposed the anti-Chaos wards Monica wore would be corroded at an accelerated pace if she got exposed to that.
The two of them hurried down the ramp, which soon brought them lower into the canyon. The surface was suddenly no longer visible when Yuriko looked back. It was covered in Chaos mists, and she saw shadows flit across the surface. A pale green fog rose around them and billowed until it covered the entire path. Monica's Light Orb was soon swallowed by mists and the shadows crept ever closer.