“So… you’re saying that this Cyst can go invisible?” Mori asked, sitting at the dining table, holding her head. She was, for the first time in her short life, truly stressed. The last few days had been a special hell made specifically for her and everyone else aboard the skiff.

VII nodded, “Yep. It was designed to create Hives in places where no one would expect them. Not only can it go invisible, but it also has methods to find us pretty easily. Beyond just following the obvious line in the sand we’re leaving behind.”

“And it can create other Clockworks. And it can turn the Kharon to scrap metal if we get hit,” Fara added, “This is a nightmare… How long until your death knights are awake, Mori? We could use them right now.”

Mori shrugged, deferring to Eva in the matter of her death knights. The woman gave an uncertain smile, “Well, the good news is that they are moving a bit more in their sleep. If it keeps going like this, they could be up and about in… a week? Give or take a day or so?”

They groaned, slouching in their seats when they heard that. Mori, after a moment, straightened her back and turned to her three zombie death knights, “First, Ally, have you seen anything poking around on the horizon?”

“I did,” she replied, “Some weird cans with… I dunno, blades spinning around above them were watching us from just beyond the range of our guns. You could probably kill one, but… it would be a waste of time.”

VII sucked in a breath, “Observation drones…” she muttered just loud enough for Mori to hear, sitting next to her, “Those’re the things Cysts use to look around when they go dark. They can’t really… see… when they go invisible, called going dark. They need something to send information to them so they know where to go. Those drones will shadow us until the Cyst catches up with us…”

“Wait,” Mori interrupted, “‘Catch up with us?’ Don’t tell me they go faster when they go invisible…” 

VII nodded, “We’re barely faster than them, but it will be neck and neck.”

“Dammit… Alright, Tisi, where do you think we are?” Mori asked

Tisi and Fara shared a look, Tisi shrugging and looking back at Mori, “Judging by the direction we are going, the speed we have been going, and Aerolat’s minute steering corrections, we’re not going to have much longer to run. We’ve been running the runes ragged and the dynamos are close to becoming dangerous, but we’ve been gaining speed thanks to it. Unfortunately, that means that we’ll be hitting the mountains in two or so days. From there, we’ll have to go along the sides of the mountains for… hundreds of miles.”

“Which won’t be too bad,” Fara added, “We can go pretty fast for a skiff-- fifty miles an hour or so-- but that’s only if we work the runes to near-breaking. The problem will come when we have to slow down to let the dynamo decompress its mana,” she explained.

Mori rubbed her armored chin for a second before an idea came to her, “Hmm… Fara how long until we need to vent the dynamo?”

“Three days if we want to risk damage to the dynamo. Two if we want to be safe,” she replied.

Mori nodded, “Alright… what if, instead of going along the mountains, we hide in them until we can get the drop on the Cyst? We have half a dozen Clockwork undead here, two warcaskets--”

“Are you just calling them that now?” Fara asked.

“What? It’s a thematic name. Anyway, we have that, plus us here. Can we take a Cyst with just us?” Mori asked, turning, reluctantly, to VII. She still had some animosity towards the woman, but she had cooled off in the days after their escape. Keeping anger burning for that long was… unhealthy. Ironic as it was for an undead lich to fret about health, she knew it was true. An apology would be nice, though.

“It wouldn’t work,” VII replied to Mori’s question, “A Cyst isn’t just a big clockwork unit, it’s its own structure. Punching a hole in the middle of a Cyst will just just make it crash. Utterly annihilating every scrap of metal in the thing would do that… but we don’t have anything that can do that,” she said with a straight face, keeping her gaze on Mori. The lich felt her bony face beginning to contort to a frown, but she kept herself in check, “If we invaded the Cyst, then it would be possible, but that is essentially impossible. Too much ground to cover, too few units to cover it. Even with your death knights.”

Mori nodded slowly along with VII’s words, “So, we can’t really attack them, we can’t run, we can’t hide because of the observation drones, what can we do?” she asked.

They all looked around at each other, but none of them could come up with anything substantial. None of them had a real concrete plan. The first to speak up was Eva, “Well, if we can’t do anything, then we could just follow the ‘fake till you make it’ plan. We go around, hunt down monsters and beasties, you raise them, and we try to take over the Cyst with that?” she proposed.

“It could work,” VII said, “But it’s not guaranteed. I think it’s the best plan we have, but its not guaranteed. I would create something to help, but with my soul as it is…”

“Don’t try it,” Mori said, “I’ve still got to get you to the gods. For now, I don’t think there’s anything else to talk about. I’m going to go check on Aerolat. See you guys later,” she said, standing up and walking over to the stairs in the dining hall and making her way up to the top deck.

She was about to enter the control booth when VII walked up behind her, “Mori,” she said, “I’m… sorry. We’re stuck with each other for a while at least, and you’re the only thing keeping the Forgeheart from ripping my soul to shreds, so I should have taken your feelings into account. So, sorry,” she said.

Mori turned and looked at VII, who stood in front of her with a stance that showed just how long she lived. It was confidence, the same as how Mori stood. Mori sighed, “You know what? I’m kind of sorry too,” she replied, gesturing to the shade of the walls on the Kharon’s top deck. They walked over to it and leaned into the shade, Mori sighing once more, “Look, I agree with you on the stuck with each other part. I don’t particularly like you, but I can’t deny my own biases here.”

“If you were part of some other god’s world and a lich told you what I told you, you’d hate the lich,” VII observed.

“Exactly,” Mori agreed, “But I am here, at this moment, in a world where endless legions of mechanical monsters keep trying to kill everyone. If someone who represents the whole of that stands in front of me, do you find it weird that I dislike you even before your blunder back there? I tried to keep an open mind, but… well, you know.”

VII nodded with Mori, “It’s your skewed perspective, you know? Have your gods sent anything through that system of yours saying that you shouldn’t listen to me?” Mori shook her head honestly. She had a feeling that the gods were trying to limit their interference by waiting for her to seek them out, but she could accept that. They had other things to worry about, “I thought as much. If you were born on one of mother’s faith-worlds under attack by your gods, you would hate the god of death and the goddess of corrupted life. That’s what some of the more fanatical of mother’s followers call them, anyway. I won’t say that you have to forgive what has been done in this war, but I just don’t want anything getting in the way of us, you know, not dying,” VII chuckled, showing a slight hint of nervousness.

“Then we’re on the same page,” Mori said, “Though, you have a bit more investment in not dying; I already know what it’s like.”

VII hummed a bit, “I guess so. I’ve heard that it’s painful. Is it? Because I swear that this soul wound is just as bad…”

“No, dying has got to be worse,” Mori said firmly, “I’m guessing it’s the difference between getting your skin peeled off, strip by strip, and getting sliced open. Neither seem very fun, but getting taken apart by mana is worse.”

“I suppose so… By the way… your friend, Fara, said you were interested in minion design, right?” VII asked. Mori shied away from VII’s rapidly expanding grin, “You do! Finally! Do you know how many of my siblings don’t appreciate good minion design? They all see it as an obligation and barely put any effort in! I mean, some of them think just slapping a new weapon onto an old model is enough! It’s a mockery!”

“Wait, please tell me you’re not serious,” Mori said, “They would just add a different weapon to a Scout or something and say that it fills a different role? That’s… just inefficient. I haven’t needed another design in a while apart from my death knights and the normal zombies, but that’s why we made the warcaskets. You don’t put heavy armor on a zombie and call it a day, after all.”
“Thank you!” VII agreed, nodding vigorously, “Imagine the audacity! By the way, how did you get that to work with your undead? The easiest way to add armor to an undead is altering the way they’re made. You know, inbuilt mana shields and the like.”

“Actually, adding a booster mana makes the undead just generally better. It might be a quirk with my death mana, but most of the time I use it, the body melts. I only used it properly for Frankie. And he’s probably dead by now…”

VII nodded, “Yeah, we do that with our clockwork units too. Here’s the trick, when you boost something like minion creation, you need to take the mana type into account. A rage undead can be upgraded with booster mana if they were extremely wrathful. The more stable and reliable the clockwork unit is, the better you can upgrade it.”

Mori quirked her brow, “Are you sure it’s alright telling me that?” VII shrugged, waving a hand dismissively, “I’m not taking responsibility for that, then. But what does using a booster mana do for the undead? Or clockwork in this case?”

VII thought for a moment, “Well, their soul, for starters. Stronger, better soul and all that. It also betters their body. A scout unit can usually lift as much as an adult human can, but an upgraded one can lift the same amount twice over. That sort of thing.”

“Hrm,” Mori grunted, thinking, “Well, the warcasket is just a generic bonding mana with some other stuff to fuel the undead’s soul. It burns through mana like nothing else, so much so that half a dozen dynamos are needed to feed it.”

VII smirked, “Yeah, I’d suggest you cut down on mana consumption. Minions usually instinctually take in mana to fuel themselves, be they clockwork units or undead. If their dynamos get destroyed, then letting them fight with ambient mana is a good idea.”

Shaking her head, Mori stood straight, “Maybe, but we’re working on something a bit different. Give me a minute to talk to Aerolat and we can keep talking on that subject.” Mori walked into the control booth and spoke to Aerolat, predictably, there was nothing to report.