Jania took the young girl to a fallen tree and directed her to sit down.
"Okay, you are going to have to start again, now tell me who you are and how did you get here," asked Jania.
"I am Kikei, I was aboard Arkship two, we were heading towards X1563. Technically I was called the technical officer and it was my job while in the merge pods to manage the maintenance bots. The real job assigned to me by my owner was to be an incubator for my owner offspring once we colonised X1563. I was designed to be a perfect breeder."
Jania did ask her who she was but wasn't expecting to get such a detailed answer.
"Well hello Kikei, I'm Jania and my story is long and complicated and the less you know the better. So how did you come to be here?"
"This is an interesting part!" Kikei started to get excited before launching into her story.
"So we were flying along when a portal open up right in front of us. Next thing we knew our ship had been stopped and dragged into the portal by aliens! real aliens, can you believe that?"
"then what happen?" prompted Jania
"Well, we were all removed from our pods by these pretty looking humanlike aliens with pointy ears. They had armor that seemed to move on its own and they were riding these winged horses. They were so pretty but they didn't talk to us. They pointed in the direction for us to move to. That was when I heard this cute innocent voice in my head that gave me directions. I don't know why but I followed those directions and ended up here. The voice told me you were here. But I'm not crazy I swear!"
Jania suspected she understood what had happened and wanted to test something. She reached out to see if she could mentally connect to Kikei.
"Can you hear me?" asked Jania
"Woah you're in my head too now! , wait, wait can I talk telepathically too" Kikei concentrated on trying to communicate with her mind. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, good now we can talk this way" Jania had confirmed the first part of her suspicion that Kikei was psychically sensitive. Now she had to work out who or what was communicating with her and if they were friend or foe.
"Don't worry Jania, I'm not Phosporos." She could tell from the voice that it wasn't him, it was the will-o-wisp she had been following. It continued "What I will tell you is that your defining decision approaches and since Pythia seemed fond of your group, my warning about how the spirits have forbidden violence was true, but there are always loopholes " the voice was gone again.
Jania was starting to piece together what was happening, but she had no idea what decision she was about to make but she didn't want to dwell on it for too long. She had her mission to complete.
"So Kekei can you show me where you came from?"
Kikei got shy all of a sudden. "I have no idea where I came from, I just followed the voice"
Well it was time for plan B, "well you could see me while I was cloaked, could you see the Elves as well?" asked Jania
"Elves? Like from the story? So that why they were so pretty" Kikei had started to daydream of the Elves.
"Kikei, Focus!" ordered Jania.
"Yeah, I can see their aura or that what it looks like to me. But don't ask me to explain it, it only just started since I got on this planet."
Jania was happy with this, it was something she could at least work with. She knew there was a settlement nearby and with some clever planning, she should be able to cover a considerable amount of ground by using Kikei ability.
Jania had also received some more good news from Leia her AI, it had detected at least 6 different anomalies with the weather. The weather didn't match what should have been happening which suggested there was something cloaked. She now had 6 possible locations to investigate. One of them was nearby which she had assumed is where Arkship 2 crew is being held.
She took Kikei back to the Eous, to get her equipped with some better gear and to get more of the surveillance equipment out now that she had a viable target. The gear she had given Kikei was just an old suit that didn't have an exoskeleton or anything but gave her a little more protection.
They walked carefully over to where Leia had detected the abnormalities in the weather, and Jania got Kikei to use her ability to see if she could identify any Elves. It turn out it was not going to be that simple. Jania suspected that each city was surrounded by a stealth field using what her little bro's called prime magic.
Upon closer scrutiny, more abnormalities were making themselves known. She was now confident that those locations were cities or communities. She was just about to get Kikei and return to The Eous and figure out the next move when she detected some motion in the trees.
Jania also noticed the Will-o-Wisp was near one of the trees and that the tree was leaning toward Kikei. It had taken too long for Jania to notice that the elves had deliberately knocked over one of the trees and aimed it at Kikei. She had a choice, she could escape and return to The Eous and then the golden chariot or she could save Kikei but that would cost her, her life.
The choice should have been easy but Jania was struggling which it.
'It seems the choice Pythia and the voice said I would need to make, is here. Pythia said making a decision that aligns with your nature are easier to live with, but I don't want to be a coward for the rest of my life' Jania had made her decision.
She moved quicker than she had ever moved and pushed Kikei out of the way of the tree, but unfortunately, she had no way to avoid the tree herself. It landed on her crushing her hips and lower back while pinning her to the ground.
Jania used the last of her energy to communicate with Kikei.
"Kikei, run to the ship, in the pod is a black metal stick, argh, just think home and it will take you home. Go Now!"
"No, I won't leave you!" Kikei was in tears, why did she do that? they had only just met.
Back on the Golden Chariot, Infy and Null were currently working on their gate device when they felt a disturbance. They couldn't explain it but they knew Jania was in trouble. They Instantly teleported to The Eous, as they had been tracking its location.
Once on the planet, they could detect where Jania was, it had only taken them a couple of seconds top fly there.
Kikei didn't know what she was looking at, An Angel had descended and had the brightest aura of anyone she had seen so far, it was blindingly bright. The Angel had thrown the tree off of Jania and Kikei could see that her aura was getting fainter. She was dying.