Mori settled into her chair on the top deck of the Kharon, sitting next to the door of the control booth of the skiff and reading a book. She was feeling much less hopeless about the situation since the morning meeting for many reasons. They had a day or so to go until they reached the Averus Range, they had a plan-- not a good plan, but a plan nonetheless-- and she felt like she was gaining some understanding of her new passenger. She thought back to VII’s speech about the state of the gods and her own reaction to it. She was far too… hasty when judging VII.

She thought, for a moment, what a person from Earth not used to the odd logic of Granulous would think of who and what she was. She created a form of life that was completely subordinate to her. She ordered them about as she wished, changed them as she wished, and created them with deformed or modified bodies as she wished. A person from Earth might have thought that she had a god complex. Thinking about it like that… she found that she did not care.

She was a lich. It was in her very being to create undead. Not only that, but she did not believe she was a god-- she knew enough gods to dissuade such a narcissistic thought. She had a wholly different situation from the people of Earth, whatever that was. It put her original dislike of VII into stark contrast. VII had a situation wholly different from what she was living in. For all Mori knew, VII was like her death knights; loyal to her creator simply because En’gem’ia was her creator.

Beyond that, VII was not the one who started the war between gods, only a byproduct of it. Though, whoever did actually start the war would need a very good reason for starting it and causing so much devastation across any number of worlds. Mori decided to put that train of thought aside; she had no means of unraveling the war between the gods, not when she was being chased by a single controlled minion of En’gem’ia, anyway.

She closed her book, realized that she had simply been staring at it for the last few minutes and looked up at the sun as it nearly grazed the horizon. As she looked at the sun, Fara walked over to her with a chair dragging behind her. She sat down, leaning back into it, “Hey, Mori,” she said tiredly.

“Hey, Fara. Are you alright? You sound like you’re about to collapse from exhaustion,” Mori said, still looking at the horizon.

The woman leaned further into the chair, “I am… I’ve been keeping an eye on the dynamos down below. It’s been hard, but it’s better than being blown to pieces,” she chuckled, not looking to Mori for a response. They sat in comfortable silence for a short while, watching the sun slowly kiss the edge of the horizon. “Hey, Mori, can we talk?”

Mori turned, nodding, “Sure. What about?”

“It’s about… VII… Are you sure it’s really a good idea? Keeping her here, safe?” she asked, “I mean, she’s a Clockwork. She’s one of the things trying to take over the world. This just feels… irreverent? No… Disgraceful? You know? Sheltering an enemy?”

Mori gave the question a good second of thought, more to find the right way to respond to Fara than to actually ponder her thoughts on the matter. She smiled a little as Fara looked towards her, “I don’t think it is. I think it’s a sign of strength to embrace an enemy as a fellow person. Back on Earth, there were no people apart from humans, so it was a question of human altruism prevailing. Here, though? It’s a question of holding grudges. Let me ask you something. If your village was being attacked relentlessly by a necromancer and his army of undead, would you then kill that necromancer’s death knight just because the knight comes from the same source as the zombies?”

“... I think I would,” Fara replied, a grimace on her face.

Mori shrugged, “Alright then. What if you then learned that there was more going on around you than you believed? Maybe the village raids the necromancer’s lair a lot and the necromancer simply responds in kind. Maybe it was the kingdom that declared war on the necromancer’s family, and he simply attacked your village because it was war. Or maybe it’s another reason.

“Personally, I was close to killing VII at first. The thing that stopped me, though, was when I Connected to her soul. As soon as I saw that damage, I had to stop. There was more going on than I thought could be possible. So, I stayed my hand. I waited to hear her side of the story. I heard it, and I didn’t like it. Even now, I don’t like it, but she’s not at fault…

“You know, I prayed to the gods every night since then. I asked them to tell me if she was lying. I seriously prayed to them. And… nothing. I can only assume that they are silently endorsing her story. But… we’ll know when we get to the Shrine. It’s only a matter of-”

Explosions erupted in the distance, far too close for Mori’s liking. Almost on instinct, she spun a barrier directly behind them, where the blasts came from, staggering a bit at the power behind the explosions left in the shells’ wake. Growling, she reinforced them as she stood. “I know it’s late, but Cyst to the north!” Ally called from the stern-side turret tower.

“Thanks, but I figured it out,” Mori called back, focusing on reinforcing the barrier, “Get Tisi up here just in case!” she yelled, turning to Fara, “Go take over the wheel and let Aerolat take the guns.”

Fara nodded, going into the control booth and closing the door behind her. “Dammit, Ally!” Mae shouted from the turret tower above Mori, “Didn’t you see them!?”

“They go invisible!” Ally shouted back, turning for barely a second as the turrets suddenly aligned themselves with the horizon behind them, “What am I supposed to do? Cover ‘em in flour or something!?”

“Both of you, focus,” Tisi shouted as she ran up the stairs, “We have work to do.” Another volley of artillery launched from the Cyst trailing them, most of them missing the skiff entirely and the remainder meeting Mori’s mana shield. “Mistress, do you need help?” Tisi asked, fidgeting a bit.

Mori shook her head, “No, I’m fine. Just be ready to step in if you need to. I’d rather not make the trek to the Averus Range on foot, after all. Not to mention carrying the other seven,” she laughed, hoping to raise the spirits of those who could hear her.

Her humor seemed to have an effect, as her death knights were a bit more calm as another volley slammed into her shields. She suddenly heard a dull buzzing coming from behind the skiff, followed by the crack of gunfire from Mae, Ally, and Aerolat. Little pops of exploding clocksteel followed, but the buzzing did not decrease in pure number, but in fact began to grow. 

“Tisi, we need you up here!” Mae shouted, “There’s too many of them!”

Mori snarled, “What’s going on up there?” she shouted.

“The drones!” Ally answered, “There’s hundreds of ‘em up here!” At that moment, another stream of bullets joined theirs, coming from VII standing on the rightmost wall of the skiff. She simply gave Mori a nod as they continued to shoot at the supposed oncoming horde of drones.

Eventually, the cannons stopped firing and the few that still tried fell woefully short. Seeing such, Mori leapt up and got a sense of what was harassing the skiff. It was the observation drones, all with small guns coming from their bases. Mori joined the others, firing beams of light at every drone she saw and trying to wait for a few to come close enough to the skiff to fall on the deck. She was unsuccessful, but she was fine with that. They had still outran the Cyst and defended themselves well enough.

They all found themselves sitting next to the control booth as Aerolat took over the steering once again. Mori looked around, seeing them all lean back and relax. She did the same, leaning against the wall and turning her head to VII, “How much time did you think we bought?” she asked VII, “It takes some time to go dark, and they don’t move much faster than us, so we’ll be fine, right?”

VII nodded as she closed her eyes, “They won’t catch up for a while, though we can expect it to harass us with drones and long-ear units…” she paused for a moment, “I don’t think it will ever really stop. It’ll keep hunting us to the ends of this world and the next dozen…”

“Then we’ll just have to lead it on for longer,” Fara joked. They had a good chuckle as the sun finally stopped its domination of the sky, revealing the stars and cosmos to the odd group of refugees.