An Fai dashed closer and closer to a new rock formation, leapt from one to another and then reached a lookout point. The horizon was further than on earth, but the world was still clearly bent, and you could not see everything from an infinite distance. From the higher vantage point, a group of Awakened came into light. They were transporting four carts. Each drawn by twelve humans.
An Fai stared over the long jagged, shadowed rock formations. It had the warm dusty hues of an alien and barren nature of environment. In total she counted roughly a hundred Awakened, from of which at least two were Ascended. Waynie, whom she had met and played cards with at the castle, was there as well. He seemed to have incurred some injury to his right arm and was waving around with his left. In a manner that appeared to be to be giving commands. Another group of about forty of them was dealing with a small group of awakened beasts. The corrupted creatures were heavily outnumbered, and the Ki Song soldiers would win without losses. The large group shifted forward and backward, a lot of the Awakened in the formation did not get a chance to do anything. An Fai could tell that they were a disorganized bunch with limited battle experience and their commander Waynie seemed to be in over his head.
From up here, An Fai could not see the Nightmare Creatures yet, that were gathering at the horizon. But she knew that they were there. She had to hurry.
Waynie was staring at the dead corpses his soldiers were pillaging now. The landscape fluctuated every couple of miles. Areas were shifting between large flora and jungle to almost entirely abandoned landscapes. Right now, there were barely any plants around, and it was all just red sand again. The sun had almost disappeared. Waynie's men and the few women looked tired and exhausted from the long travel, but he did not think that it was a good idea to rest. Then one of the women approached him. It was Senna, the healer who had offered to heal his arm previously. Obviously there had been little success. She pointed at a couple of dots in the far distance. "Nightmare creatures."
Waynie squeezed his eyes to get a better picture, but he couldn't tell what the little dark spots on the horizon were. Not with the backdrop of a horizon that was getting darker. A couple of Nightmare creatures weren't really a problem. "So?"
Sennas finger wandered across the horizon then pointed again and again and again in almost every direction. "They aren't so few."
Waynie took in the information, then nodded. "Are you some kind of scout, Senna?"
"No, I'm actually a nurse. The Shaking Fist clan hired me to help with medical emergencies. You confiscated sixteen soul shards from me, and they were honestly earned and had nothing to do with gambling, Sir."
Waynie pondered what she had said for a moment, then grabbed his bag and handed her sixteen shards. There were two reasons why he gave her her money back. One, she wasn't asking for a lot. And second, to insult the only healer in the cohort and to claim their money was earned dishonestly, would only lead to problems down the line. The others could complain about unfair treatment if they found out. But it didn't matter, they had all gambled after all.
"Look over there." Senna pointed at a large number of black dots in the direction they were heading. "We really can't be going in this direction."
Waynie sighed, perhaps it was better to wait till the morning when they had a better sense of the direction they were going and the dangers that were waiting for them.
Waynie looked around between the walking soldiers to find someone important among them. "Oouze! We're making camp!"
A few hours later Waynie was diving into his soul sea.
[Aspect rank: Transcendent]
[Aspect ability: Recurring Bounds]
[Description: Crystal is nothing but an endless form of recursion. As the weaver mended the hard material, it found them to be unsuitable, he sighed and left them behind.]
[Aspect ability: Crystal Being]
[Description: This boon makes your bones as resilient as the crystals that you can create.]
[Aspect ability: Resonance]
[Description: Your body communicates to the vibrations of its surroundings.]
Waynie could not heal his bones, because they functioned like crystals. So far, breaking them had only happened to him once. Back then he had needed a special medical type of mechanical engineer in Ravenheart to prop him up. Waynie's 'Recurring Bounds' did give him the ability to grow any type of crystal structure. And one of these were his bones. He did not know how they were a crystalline structure, but it was part of his 'Crystal Being'. Or had he understood that wrong? Waynie focused on regrowing his bones, but it didn't bear any results. A glass shard cut through the fiber of his clothing and then dropped to the ground, falling from his elbow. With the cloth destroyed, Waynie decided to finally put his Ki Song uniform on again. It was a proper centurion uniform, which seemed just about right in terms of rank and had been issued to Waynie on mere grounds of being a Master. There were really a lot of privileges that came with the higher rank.
Not like it was safe in any way. As was well displayed by all the Ascendent corpses that Waynie had left behind.
Right now Waynie was in the command tent, together with Florian and the man with the cap. The two were playing cards but without any money. Waynie had kept the man with the cap here because he seemed to have connections to the Shaking Fist clan and whatever type of notorious business they had going on.
"Oh, this reminds me, boss." Florian dug into his backpack and pulled out a mirror shard. "This is something, Merrin gave me before we all left the mine in the pocket dimension."
Waynie took the mirror shard in confusion and stared at it. 'What could've been the purpose?' He picked it up and moved it around through the air in several directions, then when the back of the mirror shard pointed at Florian and the mirror at Waynie, its surface gave way to Merrin again. Or rather, it wasn't Merrin but there was the mine and the pocket dimension, but on the opposite side, Merrin had placed a mirror. And in the mirror, there was Merrin's face staring at Waynie.
"Oh good, Florian gave you the mirror. I was worried, I'd be stuck here." Merrin was in a peculiar situation. He could not leave the mirror dimension on his own because he was responsible for opening the portal. Waynie had promised to help him to find a way out in return for his help to defect to Anvil. But now that Waynie had a large number of followers. He didn't feel any longer like his life was being threatened in Ki-Songs Domain.
Ouze entered the tent, saluted and stared at Waynie. "Sir, a woman has come. Her name is An Fai. She says she knows you."
"Merrin, is it possible to talk to you later? What do I have to do, to contact you again?"
"You just have to point the mirror at Florian."
Waynie moved the mirror shard away from Florian and the tunnel disappeared.
Florian mumbled in irritation. "Well, that explains why I couldn't figure this out."
Waynie didn't understand the statement, just shook his head confused, then gave Ouze an order.
"Then let her come in."
An Fai was a Master Waynie had met in the Barren Castle after Marx had parted from him. Back then, Waynie had learned from her about the Shaking Fist Clan and the Anvil soldier who had been held there. She was wearing a memory now that was medium heavy medieval armor. But the plates were tightly fitted to the specifications of the slender woman. In Waynie's weakened state, a master like her emanated quite a presence. Anyone who had an eye for the true strength of their opponents could've easily seen that the woman was stronger than anyone else in the camp right now. Of course, she could never have taken on the entire camp. But in situations like these, it would've normally fallen on Waynie to defend the honor of the cohort.
Waynie pointed his functioning arm at a blanket on the ground and suggested An Fai to sit down. "We don't actually have much time." An Fai explained exhausted. "Nightmare creatures are coming. A lot. Why do you have suddenly an army?"
Waynie shrugged exasperated. He already knew about them. He wasn't happy about it. "It just turned out that way." He noticed that her hair was worn, and her eyes looked tired. "These Nightmare Creatures you were talking about, where are they coming from?"
"From everywhere, I fear. It's an encirclement."
"And about how many?"
"I'd wager a few tens of thousands."
Waynie's eyes grew wide. "Seriously? That sounds like a national crisis. Are we getting any support?" Ki-Song's generals, whoever they were, must have had some sort of plan to deal with a situation like this. Waynie had just inserted himself. Surely a safety mechanic to protect the entire territory must have been in place.
"A battalion is coming from the Barren Fortress, but it's hopeless. We have no chance against this many creatures. We have to escape. They are only on their way to warning you. I am on the way to warn you, Waynie. That's why I came here. Will you listen?"
"I mean, of course. I just am surprised you guys care that much about us." Waynie didn't really need to be told twice. Well he did, by An Fai and Senna. Perhaps he had to be told twice when he didn't have his glass shards to rely on.
"You're all in our territory right now. Besides… your brother turned out to be quite convincing." An Fai cleared her throat. She herself wasn't sure, that it was a good idea for the battalion that was supposed to protect a fortress to come and die here.
"Marx is with you?" Waynie held his head below hers and looked up to her.
"Yes, he's been for a while now."
"That's amazing." Waynie had originally promised Marx to return within three days to their meeting point, but with everything going on he didn't have really any chance to do something about that.
But was this actually a good thing? Wouldn't they all be trapped by the storm of encroaching creatures? Why were they coming anyways?
"They are probably being driven out of Godgrave by the war." An Fai answered the question, Waynie hadn't even asked.
A bit later Waynie had gathered a full war council. The obvious plan would have been to retreat the army immediately and to attempt to catch up with Marx and the people of the Mourning Saint Clan. But after An Fai had described the exact nature of the encirclement it was clear quickly that they would be just as lost in the storm of creatures as Waynie and his people were.
The idea of just waiting out the invasion moved into focus. Ouze and Florian made a few suggestions for where they could move from here but there weren't a lot of great options for a large group of people to barricade and survive. They were literally in the desert.
An Fai grew increasingly agitated about the conversation because she was clearly worried about her own clan as well.
But Ouze was irritated too. "Boss, you can't honestly suggest to just let these creatures invade into Ki Songs domain. We have to stop them."
Waynie just shook his head exasperated. "Just watching the troops of the queen get killed is not a good use of her resources. We must hope that our military branch already has some sort of contingency in place."
Florian's gaze fell on the mirror shard. "We could just all go back to the mine and wait out the storm."
Florian himself would never profit from this idea. But he would find that out soon enough.