The Full Moon on this night was incredibly beautiful, Yuriko decided. Despite the plane’s atmosphere causing the normal lunar projection to fade, the Atavism Moon was powerfully bright.

Today was the 1st Day of Fire, After Founding 2998. It had been a year since she went through her Atavism Ritual and, against all odds, she was already a Journeyman. That must have broken some records.

Still, she had taken an entirely new path, one that wasn’t completely based on the Ancient’s Way or the current Facet and Heritage method created by the Verdant Empress. She mostly adhered to the Ancient’s though. She hadn’t tried to develop new Facets from her Heritage and neither had she delved into the patterns. Maybe she should. She didn’t have to inlay a Facet anyway.

Well, maybe when she finds herself out of the wilderness.

In the past days, she’d hunted down more of the underground monsters and harvested a dozen red glowing bones. She’d turned five into stew; a single bone was enough to satiate her for the entire day, though if she exerted herself, she became hungry earlier.

She wasn’t at her training cap yet, she could feel it. Every day, after using Recovery, she felt a bit stronger, a bit more agile, and a bit tougher. She hadn’t really pushed her stamina though, so that aspect of her physique was lagging. That meant she couldn’t use Body forging yet. Damien said that it would be the last time the technique could be used so she had to make sure she was at the optimal state.

She stretched under the shelter of the trees. Yuriko hadn’t had time to build a new shelter but then again, she hadn’t stayed in one place for more than a single night. She had nearly three dozen bamboo canisters filled with filtered and boiled water. That should last her eighteen days. One canister to drink and another to boil the glowing bone in. To be safe, she shouldn’t travel for more than nine days in a row if she didn’t find water.

She felt as ready as she could ever be. Sure she could make more canisters, but her bag was getting too cumbersome already. That and she hadn’t been attacked for the past week.

The next day she was hiking back towards the spire. It took her a couple of days before she was truly back in the desert. The last stream was a day away. She walked and walked.

Nevermind the grit and dry winds.

Nevermind the monotony.

Even during the night, the Chaos streams were in uniform streaks going east to west.

The land wasn’t flat by any means. Instead, it undulated, making her traverse low hills and ridges. It made more sense than going around them. She’d have to travel an extra five to ten minutes out of the way if she did. There was a smattering of those thorny, leafless plants, some of them growing a dozen paces high. Maybe if she followed the lay of the land she’d discover an oasis or something.

She cut straight across the dunes. Somewhere along the way, the dry, cracked clay turned into coarse yellow sand. Her boots sunk into the drifts and when she pulled her feet out, sand poured into the footwear. She shook out the sand and tucked her pants into the boots, securing them with rope.

Three days. She’d been in the desert three days and there was nothing but sand surrounding her. Damien had taken to humming wordlessly so that her storage of Radiant energy was never full. It meant that the noonday sun felt nice and relaxing instead of boiling hot. But then the heat also meant that the water inside the bamboo canisters was unpleasantly warm. And, of course, her condenser canteen couldn’t pull any moisture out from the air...except maybe from her sweat?

She stepped under the shadow of a dune. The spire was still frustratingly far. How many leagues had she walked from that cove? How wide was this plane? The distance between Faron’s Crossing on the western side of Rumiga was only about a hundred and fifty leagues from the eastern side. If she walked five leagues a day then she could have walked that distance in…uh…thirty days? Well, crossing the Zarek would have slowed her down.

Well, she was sure her journey from her treehouse to here had taken more than thirty days.

The sand dune was quite high. Or maybe it should be called a ridge?

She walked along the shadowed side rather than walking on the peak. The sand was a bit loose up there and a misstep could send her tumbling down the side. Well, at least her stamina was getting a good workout. It turned out that walking in the dry heat for days on end with little water was more than enough to strain her body, even though she was already quite strong to begin with.

Ten canisters of bamboo down.

She had four more days worth of water before she needed to turn back. There was no sign of vegetation or any kind of wildlife at least, not during the day. When she settled to rest at night, the desert air was abuzz with rustling, clicking, chirping, and other strange insect noises.

When she took another step, the sand collapsed from under her foot. Though she was caught unaware, she leapt back, somersaulting a couple of times in the air before she landed in a crouch. She looked up in time to see a giant, rust-brown claw snapping towards her neck. Eyes wide, she threw herself to her right, rolling out of the shade and into the sunlight.

Click, click!

A black blur came from above her and she was barely able to dodge out of the way. A barbed tail--no, a stinger, pulsed as it withdrew. The sand was wet with venom.

The creature, a gigantic scorpion, shrugged the sand from its back. Its black, beady eyes stared malevolently at her. The creature was longer than she was tall. In fact, two of her would barely cover its length. Its legs elevated its body chest high to her.

Yuriko’s eyes narrowed even as Animus started to circulate in her body. Her Anima flared  while her Animus blades formed over her fingers. If this were a regular beast, it would run. But it wasn’t and it probably meant that it had something in its body that was worth harvesting.

She bared her teeth and snarled when the scorpion rushed at her. It may not have been afraid of her but she was certain it wasn’t an even match. Her blades cut the pincers off in a single blow, and even as the scorpion attempted to sting, she easily sidestepped then cut off the tail.

Now it was afraid.

Sand burst from the bottom of her feet and the next moment, she’d sunk a blade into its eye. It shuddered, then its legs folded in on itself.

Aside from the initial surprise, this was no challenge, Yuriko lamented. Why, it’d take more than one to make her feel threatened.

Aaaand, because she tempted the Threads of Fate, it answered.

All around her, giant scorpions surfaced from the dunes, a reddish light came from behind their black eyes. Clicking sounds came from their chelicerae, those little pincers near their mouths. A quick glance gave her their numbers. Twenty.

Yuriko sighed. “Well, if you’re giving your lives to me, then make it interesting.” With a feral grin, she launched herself at the nearest one. Her Anima flared, and maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she saw their legs tremble.

_______

Kiyo Mishala Alfein paced nervously on the deck of the carrier. It had taken her several weeks to travel from Rumiga all the way to Realmheart. And now she was minutes away from the Clan’s headquarters.

The trouble with getting back home was that she had to cross the Delovine plane, several hundred leagues of cultivated farmlands and forestlands, before she got to the next Chaos Channel. Even so, the plane of Ulmira was even wider than Delovine. Leisurely travel was nice, but when one travelled bearing troubling news…

No, it wasn’t pleasant in the slightest.

She had, of course, already sent a missive ahead. It was terse and lacking in greater detail by necessity, and she knew that as soon as she arrived in the compound, she would be whisked off by her irate cousin to be interrogated.

She had one important job and she failed at it miserably. Kiyo was supposed to watch over her rather headstrong niece. Well that and she was supposed to teach in the Academy, but this was far more important.

“Did I leave a note?” she wondered. Ah, with Charlene and Silus’ wiles, she’d been too distracted.

Kiyo shivered in fear. Well, it wasn’t as if anyone with Mishala blood could ignore that bit of themselves. She’d had a dozen lovers from when she became an adult and it had reached a point where she couldn’t imagine going through her life without at least a pillow friend.

The Sunset Quadrant of Realmheart was filled with quays, warehouses, courthouses, and pubs. The Mishala Clan’s compound was up north in the Aerule Gardens. The inter-quadrant transportation was handled by sky carriers. Much like a commuter tram, except it flew in the air and was guided by Way Towers. If Kiyo took land transportation it would have taken her weeks to cross each district instead.

The view was spectacular from up here, but Kiyo had long been used to the view. Realmheart was a single city that spanned all corners of the plane. It was much bigger than the other planes around it, a product of countless years of materializing land from the Chaos.

Not that the entirety of the plane was filled with buildings and roads. No, that would be foolish and boring. Right now, they were atop cultivated fields. Wide ponds that cultivated Imperial Loti, the seeds of which were an essential ingredient to the Zoi Elixirs. Such flowers were only grown here.

Realmheart was a patchwork of villas, palaces, small urban centres, gardens, tamed forests, and sculpted mountains. Each one was carefully managed and arranged such that the flow of ambient Chaos formed the plane-wide runescript array that kept it, and the surrounding planes stable. And it was a weapon.

No Chaos Lord or Unformed dared come near the Empire’s capital plane.

Soon enough, the carrier came into the Aerule Garden District. Here, the trees were grown and sculpted into aesthetically pleasing shapes. Though the definition of aesthetically pleasing often lied with the owner of the land. Who wanted to look at bare twigs formed around varied animal and bird skulls?

Other than a few odd places, most of the Gardens were of fruit and flowering plants. Kiyo always enjoyed strolling down the Garden Lane, though she hurried now.

The Mishala Clan compound was set in the middle of the woods. Or rather, the woods were part of the compound. Anyone can wander inside, but only those of the blood, or those with approval, can enter into the inner demesne.

At the very centre were giant trees whose trunks were several dozen paces wide. Dwellings were either at the base, looking much like they were grown from the trunk, or high up above.

Kiyo went up to one of the Great Trees. This one had a spiral of steps that climbed up to the lowest branches. From there, she went up to the third branch and followed the path. Each branch was just as wide as a country road, and there was little chance to fall off, even without the railings built on the edges.

A modest dwelling was near the edge, right on a spot where the sun shone down. Gulping down saliva, Kiyo knocked on the door and entered when the door opened.

Sadeen Kierra Mishala was seated on a throne, staring imperiously down at her from across the antechamber. Her cousin was nearly twice Kiyo’s age yet Sadeen looked not a day over twenty years old. She had the same blue eyes and golden hair that Yuriko did and the same slender build.

“So, cousin.” Sadeen’s voice was cold. “What happened to my daughter?”

“Cousin,” Kiyo began, “it’s not my fault! She's just as stubborn as Virgil. Besides, we need to send a search party.”

Sadeen’s eyes narrowed. “What happened?”

“She...uh...she created a Chaos Spring and got sucked through. Um, in the middle of a Chaos Storm.”

Sadeen jumped to her feet, glared at Kiyo for a moment, then stomped out of the dwelling.

“Follow!” She growled.

“Uh, where are we going?” Kiyo asked even as she thought, ‘Not to the matriarch, please!’

Sadeen gave her a sidelong glance. “The Progenitor.”

“Oh, Ancestors.”

Kiyo followed along even as she felt as if her insides were made of ice. At least this way, they would be able to rescue the wayward child. Hopefully, before she got herself killed.