"You have yet to answer my question, Commander," Ashier said, the voice of her Proxy growing increasingly strained as they walked the halls of the church. "I respect your haste, but what are we gaining from this diversion? I can hide our forces on approach, we don't need the help of Cloak's honored Blessed."

Zolyra huffed, but the gestalt Tyrant was still important enough to humor and not, say, isolate in a Runic Barrier until Soraso was dead. "You're making the same mistake a lot of people do, Ashier. Funny for someone as devout as you." She got some satisfaction from that comment, especially because as far as she was aware Ashier would've blasted someone with dragonfire for even remotely questioning their faith. "The Illusion domain isn't just for trickery and deceit. Believe it or not, they're one of the reasons we have a shot at pulling this off."

The Cleric leading the two stopped at an intersection and gave an exaggerated bow toward one of the hallways. It screamed at Zolyra's seventh sense, but she knew most would miss it. "I don't see what… oh." The Tyrant's voice changed as their superior sensitivity to the air in the church revealed what their mana sense had. Also, the hallway they'd been directed to stretched on without seeming to end once you were past the initial threshold. "Where will this take us?"

"All the way to Aurus," Zolyra answered, grinning dangerously.

…

An hour and a half later, the half-formed spear tip merged with the Spoke's mana cleaved through the sky limit. Wingcraft, and those following, piled inside the transport tunnel before the entryway collapsed. "Alright, to the stairs now!"

As Evalyn directed everyone to safety, Daniel reviewed the alerts from the Arcadian he'd received upon entry.

Arcadian Administrative Alert

>Contact reestablished with acting administrator.

>Processing…

>Warning! General alert in effect. Only qualified users are allowed access to the Arcadian's teleportation network.

>Warning!: Astral corruption has rendered multiple nodes inactive in the Arcadian teleportation network. Current nodes active: 12

-

Arcadian Security Alert

>Warning! Several nodes have been detected with incomplete astral corruption purge. Immediate attention is required to prevent node relapse.

>Closest affected node: Transport 7. Estimated time to node relapse: 24 days, 9 minutes, 5 seconds.

Not much had changed since last time, which was surprising in some ways. It didn't look like the elites had gained or lost control of any astral rifts, since any they would have left undefended would have defaulted back to him, and not enough time had passed for them to be corrupted again. The possible presence of those like Bekali could explain that, though Daniel was also unsure of how much control the Origin Beasts had over standard elites considering they didn't even have a spirit.

Hunter eyed him when he lowered the glowing shield. Switch? The ringcat clearly wanted to be back in his true form now that they were in an environment better suited for it, but that came with two problems. Daniel wouldn't be able to receive any alerts from the Arcadian while in Beast Mode, and while he could just use the power to dismiss the form, that would leave him without that as an option while it was on cooldown.

We'll have to wait until a fight starts, sorry. I do want to use it and awaken more of its powers, but we should also consider which power set's better in the moment. Hunter grumbled, but it was only across their mental link. He was otherwise focused, aware an attack could come from anywhere.

At the front, Spinner started tapping on the side wall as she went to send purple flashes along nearly invisible strands of spider silk. "Mistress, I don't sense anything between us and safety," she reported after a few moments. "I will keep looking, this does not take much mana."

Tlara didn't seem too comforted by this, but then again the feathers on her arms had been standing up since they'd entered the Arcadian. Still, she managed to be relatively graceful compared to her baseline. "Eh? Oh, thanks Spinner."

"It is my pleasure," Spinner replied instantly, beaming. The drider patted one of the cutters hovering near her contentedly, not seeming to care that the wooden construction on the back that ended in a wide nozzle contained enough elementally charged mana to seriously wound or kill her if it was all discharged at once. The restriction of the elemental throwers resetting their stored mana at dawn remained despite Padri's tinkering, and the team had burned two mana potions filling them to halfway while flying to the entry point. The hope was not to need them, but if they did and got into another fight at an active rift, the armed cutters served as a potential mana dump for the excess they'd get.

The Engineer himself was in his war suit, which underwent a shift as they reached one of the concealed stops along the transport tunnel. The knee joints split while carefully carved wooden mechanisms lowered the top section of the leg behind the bottom, the joint then connecting along the underside of the torso chassis. While this made for stiffer movement, it also let Padri fit the thing in the shorter hallways. Once they'd completed the short run to the stairway rift, it took only ten seconds or so to revert the change.

"I'm still not used to this place," Evalyn remarked as she looked around, waiting for Sigron and Tak who had teleported over to the armory to clear it. "It all feels so dead."

"Smells dead too," Hunter grunted. "Barely anything here, even dust."

"I didn't think about that the first time we were here," Shuni said thoughtfully. "How long does a place like this have to sit to get like that?"

Daniel might have made a point about the environment possibly having some kind of UV-sterilization effect, but he didn't want to engage in that conversation. He had another idea as to the hows and whys of this place that were based primarily in what he knew about Rorshawd, as well as a few things other Spiritualists had said. The rest of the team shouldn't be bothered by the implications.

Tak soon contacted the team via sending stone, at which point Spinner was sent through to make absolutely sure there wasn't anything invisible hiding in the armory they'd missed. Once that was done the 'B team' of Spinner, Thomas, Alex, Willow, Tlara, and Wisp in the frost wyvern, would hold down the safe zone while the rest moved on to the power core node and from there the gun battery.

A brief problem arose when one of the cutters was instructed to teleport, at which point it didn't, though Padri quickly determined he could teleport his suit so long as he was in it. It was a relatively minor speed bump, but it did mean none of the drones could go unaccompanied through a rift.

Feeling the time crunch, Daniel still stopped by Alex as the rest of the team winked through the rift. "Don't suppose you've figured out that power, have you?"

The Virtuoso shook her head, but pulled out her violin case in the next moment. "I'll work on it while you're gone. I think the pressure is actually helping."

"Well, you were born for the concert hall." He gave her a quick pat on the arm and a nod to the rest of the room. "Stay safe, everyone. You have a sending stone to us if needed. Worst case if something comes through while we're busy fortifying Alex and Willow with my walls and we'll be back as soon as possible. Thomas can create a healing field around you worst case."

"Anything that intends to harm either of them will die an excruciating death," Spinner assured sweetly. "Good hunting!"

Daniel shivered slightly as he appeared in the power core that still bore the scar from Evalyn's super Songbolt. Note to self. Never do anything to piss her off. He was about to bring up his map and find the route to their target when he noticed Padri was sticking halfway out of the war suit and looking down at one of the few stations that had survived the fight untouched. "Is your class giving you anything on this?"

"My class?" Padri asked distractedly, not turning to face him. "No. Not exactly. It is clear this place represents magic both ancient and superior to modern Threst, yet it is strange. Magic without magic, almost, if the weapons you gave me are anything to judge by."

"Right, those." Daniel had mostly forgotten about the curios he'd pulled from the armory as what he could make was better in every way. That they didn't count toward a core's magic item limit was great, though it posed questions about his grand True Enchanting theory. They'd also already figured out a good way around that limit that didn't involve plundering ancient civilizations. "When the sky isn't falling you should take a deeper look into this stuff and see if Reverse Engineering gives you anything. There's also this 'rainbow drive' that keeps popping up in some of the alerts that sounds like the reason for the energy shortage here."

"Like you said, something to think about when the sky isn't falling," Evalyn called over. "The rest of the assault is half an hour from Aurus if Zolyra's estimate was right, and I don't think anyone here believes her math was off. Daniel, the route?"

He used a few more telekinetic swipes and pokes to adjust his phone's screen through the shield, centering the map on where the directions led. "It's just off the edge of my map, but we shouldn't need to clear any rifts to get there. Looks like we're heading down slightly but we won't be level with where we entered. Probably looking at either a control room, or a large space if the weapons can be stored inside. Lots of hallways in between, looks less like the housing blocks we passed through first. One big one that connects to the cargo elevator that we should aim for, it's hopefully tall enough for Padri and Khiat to move freely."

"Hmm." Padri locked back into his armor with a thoughtful expression, no doubt taking notice of Daniel's familiarity with the layouts. He was only guessing, but someone with exposure to science fiction would have a better handle on what the Arcadian was.

The team moved in formation out of one of the larger doors, Daniel sealing the way behind them just in case. Everyone with detection powers or good senses, that being Hunter, Shuni, Daniel, and Tak in that order, kept a constant guard as they moved. Astral projections shouldn't have been a concern as they would have only spawned in once the team had left a safe zone, though rogue elites and corrupted Blessed were both possibilities.

They went unchallenged as they reached the corridor Daniel had spotted, navigating the web of nearly blank walls and occasional security doors. It was beginning to feel like a different section of the vessel compared to the pipes and crawl spaces around the lower power core as even the color of the walls changed. It was midway between the brighter color of the transport tunnel and the faded gray of the housing block, making Daniel think the structure here was stronger.

There were more to break up the solid color as well, from solid panels made from what felt like toughened glass to smaller dumbwaiter-like cut outs in the wall that stretched to floors above and below. Unfortunately they were all dead as the corruption of nearby rifts prevented anything from functioning, but Daniel marked it as yet another matter to explore once he had time.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Ten minutes," Evalyn whispered when they reached the edge of what Daniel had mapped. "This is going to be close, and we don't know if we'll need to do anything else to make this weapon work. I'd be skeptical of anything getting through the sky limit at all if I hadn't seen Claret's ring break through the Shroud, but we'll just have to figure it out when we get there."

"You mean let me figure it out," Daniel answered smugly while trying to hide his nerves.

Shuni tousled his hair, which ruined the image he was trying to reject but did help the latter. "Room's under half a kilometer out. I can be there and back in three minutes if both of you are fine with me being gone that long."

"I think Daniel can manage that, but I wouldn't push it any longer," Evalyn judged with a smile. Shuni winked, flipped up her hood, and vanished from all of Daniel's senses. The team still continued moving forward in her shadow, confident the Rogue would call out if they were heading for danger.

Does she need to do that for her power to work? Tak wondered, using telepathy for no discernible reason.

I actually don't know. Never seen her while she's invisible and we still haven't gotten to the point of sharing our power sets. Daniel propped his blast bow on his shoulder as he used one hand to rub his chin. You know, I kind of like the mystery.

Bleh, Hunter asserted dramatically, before sighing. At least she is strong. I can barely hear her when she's close.

Khiat's voice unintentionally interrupted the conversation. "She's almost there already. Fast."

As one, the three turned toward her while others raised eyebrows. "Wait, what?"

One of the corner's of Khiat's mouth turned upward toward Daniel in a very self-satisfied way. "Hunter's Eye, it's getting better. I don't see her exactly, but it's like I know a target is there. It's only because I was tracking her before she vanished, though," she added at the end. "And if she'd gone around a corner I'd have lost her."

"Can you see within the room itself?" Evalyn asked.

"No, not really. Whenever I'm using this everything else is pushed to the side. Also," Khiat admittedly hesitantly, "I lost her as soon as she went through the doorway."

"Her stealth is kind of insane," Daniel said apologetically. "It has to be at least two features working with each other and muffle sound to boost her abilities. Add her teleports and general badass commitment to kills, and-" His words abruptly cut off as Shuni reappeared a full minute before her estimate. Any embarrassment he might have felt was outvoted by the knowledge that danger could be right around the corner.

It seemed like Shuni was waiting for him to go on, but she quickly regained her composure as well. "Something's off," she said to the team. "I only scouted one thing in there, and it's a level 1 monster. Only thing that tells me it's different from normal is that it's in here."

"Is there anything that could hide from you?" Evalyn asked, eyes narrowing.

The Rogue shook her head after a moment. "No. I was able to spot that elite Rogue in the armory, and I checked after we came back. No word of any Rogue above that level being lost in those first attacks. It's possible another had a power that counters my detection, or some kind of monster thing, but." Shuni let the sentence hang with a doubtful note.

"We might have gotten lucky," Daniel said, idly knocking his knuckles on his wooden shield. "I don't know how the Origin Beast's work exactly, but both I and Soraso know their minds don't work exactly the same way as ours. Who knows if they have any idea what this place is?"

"Why would they stay by the rifts then?" Khiat asked. "You said they're keeping peo- monsters there to hold them. They'd be better off staying together and ambushing anyone else who came in here."

"If I understand how this place works, they'd have to deal with roaming astral projections," Evalyn countered. "And if they know enough to hold the rifts from Daniel, they have to know how important they are."

"But what about each individual rift? I'm the only one who can actually control them. Can they tell which ones suck and which ones rain destruction from the heavens?" Daniel was really hoping they couldn't, or else the weak placeholder the elites had stuck here boded poorly.

"Only one way to find out." Evalyn looked at Padri then and gestured him forward. "If it's only a level 1 we'll let you engage. Everyone else stay alert and watch for an ambush. Anyone disagree that Tlara won't want this monster?"

"She is looking for a weaker one to put the sparrow into," Daniel said, but his voice wasn't encouraging. "But yeah, not this one."

"Regardless, it would have been ideal for her to be here," Padri called out, his voice echoing from a sending stone on the front. "She helped design the maneuvers, though I suppose familial concerns are greater than efficiency of our commands. I will have to relay the results at a later time. I am ready to proceed."

It didn't sound like the Engineer was that worried, and Daniel had to give it to him, there didn't seem to be an easy way to get at him behind all the wooden armor. He could've enchanted better at his level, but that was with both echo durability and defensive craft putting in work. Anything he directly enchanted would also count more toward the cores restrictions, though there were ways around that.

"Release weapon set one." The mech responded to his command this time, sections of wood along the back clicking at they shifted. Daniel knew from being nosy that Padri had implemented some kind of joystick-like control on the inside. The war suit had been trained to only respond to general commands issued from the person holding it, though the Engineer had also developed code words if he needed to command it from the outside.

The large arms of the war suit reached back and pulled out a sword and shield, both unfolding from their stored position. These were items Daniel had enchanted for Padri to break down, but unlike the others they had been left unpaired from any of the cores in the mech. This had drawbacks, Padri couldn't activate any item-bound abilities like the smoke cloud in Daniel's boots, but the giant level 2 'short sword' remained a giant, sharp weapon wielded by a mech.

"Lock carapace. Move set 1. Disengage muffle sound. Charge." Padri's short orders caused more changes in the wooden construction as hidden gears, latches, and panels shifted to his conductor's baton. The two powerful legs propelled the wooden warrior down the hallway at a decent clip, leaving Wingcraft scrambling to keep up.

Daniel saw the elite monster first as it started bounding toward Padri from the open space of the gun battery's initial section. Its aura called it a 'toxic quillion'. The green barbs sticking out of the six-legged creature supported the name, though the only thing hinting at the monster's former mortality were the converted and forced transmutation tags on it.

The monster certainly didn't hold back, flicking its tail at Padri as his mech just barely crested under the frame of the wide doors left open to the hallway. Padri's shield blocked the majority of the spray, though what got through barely penetrated. "Armor holding. Moving to engage. Prepare shield rush."

Daniel and the rest of the team fanned out as they entered behind Padri. He was briefly taken aback by two massive constructions on either side of the cavernous room, but saved inspection of those for later as the fight continued. The quillion initially closed to swiping distance, but jutted to the side to avoid an overhand attack from Padri's sword. He tried again to similar effect, all the while receiving negligible damage from quills thrown at him.

"Hmm. Responsiveness is slower than I would like." The Engineer's voice was completely unconcerned by the roughly Hunter-sized menace trying to kill him, and it roared as if in recognition of this. It jumped onto his back while Padri tried to turn to face it, attempting to bite through the top of the dome he was sheltered in.

Daniel trained his blast bow in the monster's direction, though he and everyone else held back unless help was asked for. Instead, Padri dropped his sword and calmly said, "Charge right frostlock projector." A blue glow built in the center of the now free hand, which shot a cone of cold energy a second later over the top of the mech. The beast attempted to dodge by leaping off, though it was still caught by the edges and slowed by the nonlethal attack.

"Move set 5!" Padri called out quickly, showing the first signs of strain as he attempted to react fast enough to capitalize on the opening. The shield was thrown down alongside the sword as the mech adopted a lower pose, as if it were a wrestler. One of the hands did reach the monster, though the attempted grab came too late as the quillion weaseled itself out of the closing hand.

Daniel found himself shaking his head as the duel continued. There may be kinks to be worked out in the war suit, but Padri was also part of the problem. For one, he'd left weapons that had taken them both hours to make lying on the ground when he'd switched to bare-handed assault instead of taking a moment to sheath them, and his adaptability overall was poor. In fairness the Engineer didn't seem blind to his own failings, and when the quillion began to speed up again he played another card.

"Cutters 1 through 3, delta formation above my target and prime." The smaller constructs had been left trailing him, leashed by default until instructed otherwise. Three peeled off at his words and moved quickly to establish a triangular pattern around the quillion, bodies angled down so the nozzles of the elemental throwers were pointed at it.

A more intelligent monster, or one with sapience might have understood the potential danger, but they all knew too well that those forcibly converted into elites were gone. Instead the quillion jumped toward one of the cutters, attempting to take it out of the sky. "Cutter burst."

The three drones released a short spray of elemental damage, one for each type of affix Daniel had. The fourth one still behind Padri did nothing, as he hadn't primed it to fire. The green of the monster's quills blackened as its muscles spasmed and its body froze. Almost as an afterthought, the Engineer tried and finally succeeded in securing the creature as one massive hand wrapped around it.

"Charge right frostlock projector. Continuous stream until my mark." The bound weapon fired point blank into the monster, drawing on the internal mana supply of the core fixed into the right elbow of the mech. As the weapon was only level 1 to the core's level 3, it might have been able to do that forever given the very slight mana regeneration available in the Arcadian. Still, only ten seconds were enough. "Mark."

The toxic quillion hung limply in his grasp almost a full two minutes after Padri had engaged it. In all that time, no one had found any sign of other elites lurking nearby. There was mixed contentment and displeasure in Padri's voice when he spoke next. "Disengage all combat protocols and return to baseline instructions."

"You took it alive?" Evalyn asked skeptically as Daniel moved toward the rift he'd spotted near the back of the space.

"Indeed. A successful test, though there is much room for improvement." One of the large arms brushed several spikes off the front, breaking most and leaving the tips embedded. "I admit my current proficiency would not match well against a stronger opponent. I am willing to return to safety if you feel it unwise for me to continue with you."

"We'll see if that's necessary first. Daniel?"

"On it!" He reached an elevated platform overlooking the initial entryway, the roof still towering at over ten meters above him. Along the sides of the entire room were exactly what he was hoping to find: two massive, cannon-like constructions of strange metal and polymers. There weren't any loading mechanisms that implied physical ammunition, but the base of each weapon had intricate connections where it attached to the Arcadian's hull that gave him the impression of an energy weapon.

The command station itself was as barebones as the rest of the ruins, empty consoles, dead screens, and an astral rift built into the floor waiting for him to cleanse it. Quick Mind chimed the three hour mark just as he placed his hand on the surface, and as he began reading the resulting alerts, his hopeful grin slipped.

"Hey," Shuni said, slipping into space at his side and reading his face. "It was a long shot. Don't beat yourself up if this wasn't what we thought it was, you couldn't have known for sure."

Daniel took a moment to lean against her, drawing comfort from her, before shaking his head. "It's not that. This can still work, but…" He sighed and looked at the alerts again.

Arcadian Security Alert

>Corruption at Aft Starboard Ventral Battery node fully purged.

>Total remaining corruption: 95.5%

>Warning! Several incompletely purged nodes remain. Immediate attention is required to prevent node relapse.

>Closest affected node: Lower Aft Maintenance Tunnels

>Processing…

>Action successful. Path routed to nearest incompletely purged node.

-

Arcadian Administrative Alert

>Teleportation gate Aft Starboard Ventral Battery has been activated. Further power consumption noted at the local node.

>Processing…

>Critical Warning! Arcadian power supply critical. Rainbow drive inoperable, main power core offline. Ventral cannon power draw overcoming available power. System will remain nonfunctional until power capacity is improved.

>Analyzing…

>Access to Main Power Core required for use of ventral cannons. Alerting engineering.

>Warning!: Astral corruption has rendered multiple nodes inactive in the Arcadian teleportation network.

>Current nodes active: 12

-

Arcadian Engineering Alert

>Warning! Arcadian power supply insufficient for activation of defensive systems.

>Main Power Core repair required. Recommend prioritization of task over all other pending assignments.

>Path routed to: Main Power Core.

For the first time, the map the Arcadian gave him zoomed out to show the entire vessel. There was no more denying that it was anything other than a massive ship. It was vaguely shaped like a sword without the handle. There was a tall sweeping section where the handle would be, and most of the length made up by a semi-circular extension from that. It did not indicate what the exterior looked like as a red beam trailed through internal cutaways, starting a third of the way along the semi-circular section and leading up to the center of the hilt portion.

Not a huge distance to cover given they knew the general size of the Arcadian, but this was neither a straight line nor a trip through friendly territory. He also knew that the intensity of rift fights increased with how much rift there was to cleanse. The only part of the ship he thought could be worse were its engines or bridge, and that was if the entire section was networked like the cargo elevator. But the worst part? Every second they delayed was one their friends spent fighting for their lives down in Aurus. Failing here meant leaving them to face Zozar, and the Commander had given him enough to guess at her chances of taking them down alone.

At the very least, Daniel spotted an opportunity to gain some time. "We need to move," he said quickly. "Check in at the armory, and then back to the stairways. I'll explain on the way."

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