The first sign Fara, in the tunnel under the Range with the Kharon taking care of the death knights with Eva and the twins, noticed that something was wrong was the subtle vibrations of the ground. As she paused to ponder what had happened, every undead around her suddenly twitched, even the seven sleeping knights. The two lizardman zombies in the room, some of the few who survived since the raid on the pirate skiff so long ago, suddenly darted out of the room as if Mori had personally yelled at them to do something.

Fara looked between Eva, Mokan, and Norta, the latter two she had seen very little of due to them helping the fortification mages, and then to the door where the zombies had made their hasty exit, “So, what do you three think happened?” Fara asked, “I doubt it’s anything good if she’s sending pulses of mana to communicate with her undead.”

Mokan held up a finger, looking up for a second, before shaking his head at Norta, who scowled, “He thinks that whatever’s happening is not good. I… think we should get ready to run.”

Eva looked between the three of them, a scowl soon forming, “Alright then, what’re we waiting for? I’ll strap down as much stuff as I can find. Norta, Mokan, you two keep an eye out-- maybe one of you can help me. Fara?” she asked.

“I’ll turn the skiff around. If we need to run, then we can’t waste time doing that.” Fara did not wait for a response, dashing out of the room, through the Kharon, and to the steering booth or whatever Mori had called it. She gripped the wheel and began the slow, arduous process of turning the skiff around. During the construction of the tunnel, the floor of the cave had been turned into sand to allow for skiffs to travel through and Fara was suddenly happy that she insisted that the Kharon was the first skiff to test the tunnel.

She thought idly while she completed her task, more a way of distracting herself from the horrible reality of the situation happening just a mile or so away than out of any real goal of thought. She wondered how her mother was doing, as well as her father for that matter. While Molly Notchings was still in Hard Sands, doing whatever she wanted with her life, Fanrik had been doing something or other in the Liberation Force and Fara had no illusions that whatever was happening outside was happening all over.

Just as she almost finished setting the Kharon to leave the Aekan Valley someone burst through the door of her steering booth. Fara breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Mae standing there, panicked but with a purpose. “Mistress says to get ready to book it. There’s this flying fortress the size of the outpost above us and is raining fire down on the entire place. I’ll come back when everyone’s on board, but be ready!” Mae ran out as quickly as she came in. The briefly open door gave Fara a glimpse at the deck of the Kharon quickly filling with people, chaos all over.

Fara leaned against the wheel, shaking her head. Tragedy reached everyone eventually and she was simply grateful it was not her that tragedy struck. Fara watched the tunnel in front of her, glowing sticks of mana welded onto the front of the skiff to provide some degree of visibility, and simply waited. She waited for no more than a minute when the door clanged open once more, this time two figures barging in.

“Let’s go Fara, we don’t have enough time to wait!” Mori yelled as she entered. Fara did as Mori said, putting the skiff into motion as fast as she dared in the dark tunnel. As the skiff began to accelerate, she saw Mori step beside her and silently ask to take the wheel with her movements. Fara let her, stepping to the side as the lich took the wheel and sped up the skiff far faster than Fara would have done. Once the skiff was fast enough for Mori’s liking, she turned slightly, “Fara, that woman beside you is X52. She’s a Clockwork.”

Fara, taking a moment to process Mori’s words, whipped her head to look at X52. The woman was not what Fara expected from a Clockwork woman, looking like a relatively average woman with odd gear-shaped pupils. The only thing that really gave Fara the impression that there was something wrong with the woman were the claws and teeth made of the same material as Mori’s armor. “Good afternoon. Or evening,” X52 greeted, “I am, as Mori said, X52.”

“Mori,” Fara began, “What’s happening? An explosion happens out there, your undead go crazy, and you bring in a woman who’s a Clockwork? What did I miss?”

Mori grunted, nudging her head towards X52, who sighed, “It is a long story, but I was the one who used to manage the local HIve. My Forgeheart broke from both my and my mother’s control and began an omnicidal campaign against all forms of sentience and life. I escaped from it and it is now hunting me to destroy both myself and my sister, whose soul is in this heart,” she said, holding up the heart in her hand that Fara failed to notice, “Your outpost was attacked by a clockwork unit called a ‘Aerial Cyst,’ what is essentially a miniature Hive, capable of creating Clockworks at a steady rate and showering an area in artillery. Now, any questions?”

Fara’s mind refused to work for a few long seconds, finally resuming its operations when she decided to stop thinking about the story she had just heard, “More than I can count, but I doubt those are important right now. Mori, what are we planning? I doubt you’re just running without a plan, right?”

Fara watched as Mori paused for a moment before nodding, turning a bit as they reached a straight part of the tunnel, “I do. I’ll run it by you. First, I left most of my undead in the outpost to delay the tide of Clockworks. I already sent Aerolat to warn the research outpost, so they will be packed up by the time we get there…” Mori paused for a moment, “From there, I drop you, Mokan, Norta, and Eva off with the rest of the living people and we lead the big flying fort away ourselves.”

Fara listened, but she clenched her fists tight, so tightly that she could feel the blood in her flesh flow, and grit her teeth so hard they hurt. When Mori finished telling her plan, Fara put a firm hand on Mori’s shoulder, “Mori. I’m not leaving.” She said it with every ounce of conviction she could muster. She would not leave her first real friend to die. That was final.

“I thought you’d say that,” Mori sighed, “I won’t fight with you over this. I know I can’t win. But, just as a formality, are you sure you want to come with me? We might die.”

Fara slapped the back of Mori’s armored head, hurting herself more than Mori, “You know my answer, Mori. Besides, I didn’t let you join me because I knew it would be entirely safe. Mom probably thought you would keep me safe, but that was then and this is now,” she said, “Besides, I can’t let my first real skiff get blown up without me there, can I?”

“I suppose you can’t,” Mori chuckled, “Alright, I’m breaking the news to the other three,” she said, Unio sliding out from under her cloak and onto the ground. The little slime immediately slid under the door and left the room without a sound.

X52 stared at Mori for a moment, “You’re not going to talk about what in the names of the gods that was?” she asked, annoyance in her voice.

“No, I’m not,” Mori replied, “So, why don’t we get to know each other while we wait. What’s your favorite thing to do, Exy?”

Fara raised her eyebrow, “Exy? Is that the best name you have for her?”

Mori shrugged, “I could have went with VII, but I didn’t know if you would get it,” she replied, eye-flames still on the tunnel path.

“I get it,” X52 said, “Roman numerals, right?”

Barking a laugh, Mori turned for a moment, “You’ve been to Earth? Didn’t think you would have been there. We didn’t have magic there, last I checked.”

Fara saw X52 open her mouth to respond, but a smile soon grew on her face, “You know, it’s such a long story, I couldn’t bore you with it, right? I guess we’ll have to find another time to talk about it,” she laughed. 

Fara could feel the annoyance radiating off of Mori as she turned her head ever so slightly, “Well then, I guess we should talk about another topic, then? So, your favorite thing to do for fun?”

“Well,” X52, or VII, began, “I enjoy making Clockwork models. Making niche ones is my favorite, you know. With a specific purpose, one would think that they only need to fill that niche, but imagine what happens when they are left out in the open. They need to be competent in everything but also need to excel in what they are needed to do. It’s an interesting field.”

Mori, oddly enough, shrugged, “A bit work-centric, no?”

“Perhaps,” VII replied, “But you asked what I liked to do and I told you. What else do you want from me?”

Fara turned to Mori, “Mori, don't you love making interesting undead with different mana types? Like Aerolat?” Mori flinched as she spoke, pointedly ignoring the both of them. VII showed a smug grin, along with a gleam in her eyes that Fara could only think was what happened when someone found another person who shared their niche interest.

Mori groaned as VII began to snicker, “Fara… are you sure you don’t have a problem with her? She is a Clockwork, you know.”

“Mori… why do you hate her so much?” Fara asked, “I don’t know the whole story, but she doesn’t seem like a mass murderer. At least she isn’t one without a reason, I don’t think.”

Before Mori could answer, VII replied instead, “Well, it was because I told a truth she did not know nor wanted to hear. I told her the stakes at play in the grand scheme of things, and she didn’t like it.”

“No, I’m angry with you for calling any person, no matter who, ‘scant,’” Mori cut in, “I… understand the way things are run, how things happen, but it’s your attitude that I have a problem with. You don’t care about how things happen down here.”

“Oh, and you do? You may live in this world, but have you not also slaughtered sapient beings? What about animals? Or, even, clockwork units? They have souls to-” VII slapped a hand over her mouth, glaring at Mori and Fara.

“We knew that,” Mori said, “I can revive them, so they must have had souls.”

VII was taken aback, turning to Fara, who had become a de facto neutral party, for clarification, “She can revive Clockworks as undead. I still don’t get the mechanics or thought process behind it, but they are not exempt from it like most people believe.”

“That’s… impossible. It has to be. There is no way for that to be possible. Not even the gods can do that…” VII muttered, “Show me, please,” she begged, surprising not only Fara, but Mori as well.

Mori shifted on her feet, noticeably uncomfortable, “I’ll… think about it”

It was, of course, at that moment when the twins and Eva joined them in the control booth. It was a tight fit, but the message was given to the three. As Fara expected, they put up a fight over it, but when they learned where the skiff was going, Norta and Mokan reluctantly agreed to leave. Eva, however, was a different story. “I'm not leaving Dessy,” she said, “I love her.”

“What about your other boyfriend? Mark was it? Do you want to leave him alone?” Fara asked as Mori focused on not plowing the skiff into a wall.

Eva paused for a moment, deep in thought. Beside Fara, VII sighed, “That’s one of the problems with having multiple lovers, honestly. Most don’t have the power to keep multiple people on the same track in life, so when there’s a split or a divergence, things get complicated.”

Eva nodded for a moment, pausing soon after to look at the weird lady who joined them in the control booth, “Um… who are you again?”

“Long story,” Mori cut in, “So, are you staying or not? We’re probably going to die, you know.”

“I know.”

“And you still want to stay?”

She paused for a moment, “Yes,” Eva said with conviction.

“... Fine, I guess we’ve got two living people here now,” Mori paused, “We’re almost there. Hold on tight.” The skiff sped up and Fara wondered what was to come in the future.