Fayt frantically ran around the castle trying to get some answers about the mysterious woman, Thanatas, who talked about saving Dion. His first destination was Dion’s room where he found that the runologist had disappeared. Nel told him that Thanatas took him into a strange black portal.
Fayt’s second destination was the inn since Thanatas told Cliff to run ahead to tell Ameena and Mirage what was about to happen. He received the same story from before. He wanted to go to wherever Thanatas had taken them but he was not able to keep up with her actions.
With no other options, Fayt had no choice but to wait.
In the meantime, Fayt began to brood about the many lives that were lost because the Vendeeni were determined to either abduct or kill him.
Meanwhile, Twilight looked nervous. Not because of the matter of Ameena, Dion and Thanatas, but for an unrelated but more pressing matter.
“This is bad. If that battleship managed to scan the region for Fayt, they may have located the Intervention Device. If they located the ID, they will likely have transmitted its coordinates to any vessels within communication range.
I’ll need to place some extra safeguards on it to prevent the Vendeeni from getting their hands on it. I just need to find a way to convince everyone to head to its location with me.”
That was when the guards announced all over the castle that another of the “strange weapons” had appeared in the sky.
“Horseapples,” Twilight mentally cursed.
Everyone headed to the balcony overlooking the castle courtyard.
Sure enough, another Vendeeni ship had descended to the planet.
“Damn, what now?” Cliff said.
“I’ll give myself up, then they’ll leave,” Fayt said in resignation.
“Fayt, no!” Mirage pleaded.
“You say that again and I swear I’ll smack you one,” Cliff threatened.
“Besides, I doubt that they will stop with you, Fayt,” Twilight added. “The Aquarians have something that the Vendeeni will find valuable.”
“And what might that be?” Queen Romeria asked as she approached the group.
“Your most sacred treasure.”
Romeria and Nel gasped in horror. “These Vendeeni would dare steal the Sacred Orb?!” Nel shouted.
“And how do you know about our Sacred Orb?” Romeria asked.
“I can’t tell you that,” Twilight said with a shake of her head. “I can tell you that the Vendeeni would likely have picked up on the emanations of the Sacred Orb by this point. They will surely be targeting both the Orb and Fayt.”
“What can we do though!?” Fayt shouted. “This country’s technology is no match for the Vendeeni ships!”
Fayt paused as an odd thought creeped into his mind. “But, how did we deal with the first Vendeeni ship? Can we do it again?”
“Fayt,” Sophia began. “Let me be blunt, your power manifested and you literally erased the ship from existence.”
“Can’t I figure out how I did it before then?” Fayt asked. It was clear that he was grasping at straws.
“I doubt that we have the time for you to practice that power.”
Nel suddenly took a defensive stance. “Wait, another of those weapons is coming!”
Everyone looked up to see what Nel was looking at. However, Cliff and Mirage relaxed a little. “Cliff…” Mirage said.
“Yup, it’s them. Finally.”
Everyone witnessed a battle between the Vendeeni battleship and a smaller gray ship that the offworlders recognized as a Klausian ship. The two fired lasers at each other for a brief moment before the Klausian ship unleashed a volley of quantum torpedoes that damaged the engines of the Vendeeni ship while the ship counterattacked by blasting the engines of the Klausian ship. Both ships fell out of the sky.
Everyone stared at the scene for a few more seconds before the humming sound of an inbound transport was heard behind them. “Sorry to keep you waiting,” said a female voice.
“Hey, took you long enough,” Cliff said as he turned around to address the new arrival.
Everyone else turned around to see a blue haired woman wearing black, layered Klausian armor and a light gray cut jacket lined with yellow. She also wore a long half skirt of the same color.
The woman approached the group before Cliff added, “Hey, is it even safe to be transporting here?”
“I scanned the situation before coming in, so I have a good idea what to expect. At least now that this planet’s part of this mess, we don’t have to hide anything anymore.”
“True enough. But I bet you that ‘Mister Super-Square Champion of the UP3’ would disagree with you,” Cliff jabbed at Fayt’s expense to the woman.
Fayt rolled his eyes. “Ha ha, very funny.” He paused as he saw the woman. She seemed so familiar, yet he didn’t remember seeing her before. As he got a closer look at her, he was suddenly lost in her dark green eyes.
He had no idea how long he was staring but it was long enough for her to snap her fingers in front of his face to snap him out of his trance.
“Huh?” Fayt jumped.
“I was saying that this is the leader of Quark, Maria,” Cliff introduced.
“I’m Maria Traydor, but please, call me Maria.”
As Fayt introduced himself, Maria cut him off by uttering everything she learned about him from studying his profile in the database. However, Twilight gave Maria a taste of her own medicine by uttering everything she knew about her profile which completely caught Maria off guard.
“What? How did you…?” Maria began.
“You’re not the only one who is a good study,” Twilight countered.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?” Nel demanded. “Who is she? How did she just appear here?”
“That is enough, Lady Nel,” Romeria silenced. She turned to Maria. “I know not who you are, but it appears that you are one of the acquaintances. I would hear an explanation from you now, one that makes sense to my ears.”
“Please forgive my rudeness, Your Majesty,” Maria apologized. “But would it be all right if we talk among ourselves first? We have a lot of catching up to do. I will explain all of the details and how the facts are connected afterwards; that I promise.”
“So be it,” Romeria acquiesced. She ordered Nel to show the group to the conference room.
Nel led them to the room in question. Since they were going to explain to the Elicoorians, they invited Nel inside. Roger and Adray didn’t really care so they went about other business around the castle.
As the group entered and found a spot for themselves, the room remained silent for a minute before Fayt finally addressed Maria. “I know why the Vendeeni want me, but why are you interested in me? My father told me that you were another of those whose genes he modified.”
“You know?!” Maria asked. “I thought that you were kept in the dark about your powers.”
“Actually, my dad told me not long before I ended up on this planet,” Fayt corrected.
“And you’re not at all upset?”
“Well, I am a little upset that he didn’t tell me everything, but he did tell me that he modified our genes as some sort of last ditch effort to combat some huge threat that’s coming to attack our galaxy.”
“That sounds a bit grandiose and vague. What does he expect two modified humans to do against such a threat?” Maria demanded.
“Actually, it’s three.”
“Three?! What? But, how? Nothing in the Federation’s database mentioned a third.”
“That’s because Robert kept the third child a tight secret. Any information on that part was kept in a heavily encrypted file,” Twilight answered.
“And how did you find out about the third child?” Maria demanded accusingly.
“I have my ways,” Twilight said dismissively. “From what I learned from Robert, he placed Destruction in Fayt, Alteration in you, and Connection in Sophia.”
Maria’s eyes widened as she stared at Sophia who waved back at her with a satisfied smirk on her face. Maria then turned to face a corner and took a few deep breaths to regain her composure.
“Are you alright?” Fayt asked.
“Yes, I’m…just not used to not being the one with the answers. I was sure I checked every database I could find about the experiments.”
She faced Fayt again, “Your father mentioned a coming threat. Did he give any more details?’
Fayt shook his head, “He wouldn’t give all of the answers right away. He wanted me to find you first and to tell you that the answers we are looking for are on Moonbase.”
“I see…” She considered what she learned for a moment. “When the Diplo gets here, we will head for Moonbase.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?” Cliff asked. “A Quark vessel in Federation space is not going to be taken lightly.”
“You don’t have to worry about that Cliff, I have that part taken care of,” Twilight said.
“You do?! But how?” Cliff then facepalmed as he remembered that Twilight was the one who ran the Federation from the shadows. “Oh…right…”
“Like I said, I have my ways.”
Maria figured that she was hiding something, but she would have to let the matter lie until she could learn more about the mare.
A knock at the door brought an end to the conversation. Nel went to answer it to find a guard. “An emergency has occurred,” the guard said with a tone of urgency. “Her Majesty has requested an audience with all of you immediately.”
With that, everyone headed to the throne room. On the way, Cliff informed Maria about everything he found out from Twilight, including her connection to the Federation. Maria was surprised and angered at the same time, but relieved that Twilight didn’t send the Invisible after them a few years ago. She was also embarrassed that she had to have Twilight cover for her when she hacked into the Federation database.
Twilight didn’t mind Cliff telling Maria everything she told him since it would save her from explaining it later.
Thanks to the actions of the Vendeeni and the fact that it was pointless to be worrying about interactions with the less developed planet now, Lyra figured that there was little point in subtlety anymore and removed her armbands. She was eager to feel the warmth of her energy blades once again. She also made it a point to show Sophia how to use psi blades soon.
Cliff also asked Maria about her plan to get off the planet. Maria mentioned that the Diplo would be coming, but the Vendeeni might interfere. The problem was conducting the extraction operation within five minutes of concentrated fire from the Vendeeni battleships. The Diplo was not built to withstand that much firepower. She figured that a distraction from the ground would work if it was enough to concern the Vendeeni. Nel offered to ask the queen to let them borrow the Thunder Arrow, but the problem with that was that even at low orbit, a Vendeeni battleship would be too far for the runological artillery weapons to reach. Something else was needed to ensure that the Vendeeni would divert their attention away from the Diplo.
As they reached the door to the throne room, a familiar black void opened nearby. Dion was rolled out a moment later in a wheelchair by Thanatas who had a carefree smile on her face. Dion, however, looked haunted. He held himself tightly and was shivering in terror.
“Dion! Are you alright?” Fayt asked.
“I f-f-f-feel s-s-so…v-v-v-v-v-violated…”
“You’ll live,” Thanatas said dismissively. “Just don’t get yourself injured again and you won’t have to worry about another visit from me.”
Another wheelchair emerged from the black zone soon after carrying Ameena who appeared to be sleeping peacefully. A zombie wearing a lab coat was pushing her along.
“By the way, Nel Zelpher,” Thanatas addressed. “See if you can get one of the guards around here to get a second bed moved into Dion’s room. It’d be cute to see them recovering in the same bed together, but I don’t think their relationship is at that level yet.”
Nel nodded and ordered a patrolling guard to alert the castle staff to move a bed into Dion’s room.
With that done, and with Roger and Adray joining them, the group entered the throne room to see what the queen wanted.
Just like before, Romeria was sitting on her throne with Magistrate Lasselle, except this time a robed woman with long gray hair standing beside her. Adray glared at the advisor while Nel told those who didn’t know that the woman was Lady Elena, head of runological research.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” Romeria began. “It appears that your fears were well founded Twilight, these invaders, the Vendeeni, who were shot down earlier, appear to have survived their crash landing and have invaded our most sacred place, the Shrine of Kaddan. From what we have been told, the invaders wear strange armor and use weapons that emit glowing beams of light. Our runologists can only slow them down but we fear that nothing we have can stop them.
“For this, we must beg for your assistance in this matter. You appear to know the Vendeeni quite well, so you likely know how to deal with them better than our soldiers.”
“But why would they go after the orb?” Cliff wondered.
“The sacred orb is a mysterious sphere that emits the purest light,” Nel answered. “Holy water flows freely from it. It is said that in the hands of Aquaria’s ruler, the orb is capable of performing all kinds of miracles.”
“Or be used as a key to the Eternal Sphere’s control center,” Twilight mentally added, piquing Sophia’s interest.
“The waters of this lake which surround Aquios are also of the Sacred Orb,” Nel added.
“Your Majesty, which way is Kaddan?” Maria asked.
“To the east.”
Maria brought out her quad scanner and turned eastward. As she examined the energy of the Sacred Orb, her eyes widened before she beckoned Mirage to her to get a second opinion on the readings. Mirage was surprised by the readings as well.
Maria explained that the energy readings from the orb indicated that it was too advanced to naturally exist on the planet. “It may be a so-called Out-of-Place Artifact, or OPA.”
“That term was mentioned when I found the first shard of the Ihan Crystal we found.” Sophia pulled out the crystal. “It’s not actually an OPA because we found out that my grandfather planted it in several places shortly after I came into the care of the Esteeds.”
“So you’re not the blood daughter of Doctor Clive Esteed?” Maria asked.
Sophia shook her head, “Apparently not, if what my grandfather has been telling me through the crystal is true.”
“If you are willing, I would like to speak more on this later,” Maria offered. “For now, we need to stop the Vendeeni from attaining the Sacred Orb.”
“You may use the Sealed Cavern,” Romeria offered. “Lady Nel, please show them the way. Do not fail us.”
“Your Majesty!” Nel bowed.
As they left the throne room and downstairs, Maria looked at Sophia in curiosity. She knew about the Esteeds’ involvement in the experiments and that they stayed on Earth with the Leingods. Out of curiosity, she looked up Sophia’s profile while she was researching Fayt. When she found out that she would be an officer in the Federation military, she realized that they may one day be enemies since the Federation and Quark were enemies.
However, when Sophia showed her that crystal, Maria had a feeling that there was something odd about the girl. If she stuck around long enough, Maria figured that the mystery would reveal itself sooner or later.
With her task of watching over Ameena complete, Mirage decided to join the group and take part in the fighting.
Nel led everyone to the castle chapel where they found Thanatas waiting for them. She looked slightly irritated.
“What’s wrong?” Sophia asked.
“The holy energies in the chapel is the problem. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“You’re coming with us then?”
“Hell yeah, anything to get away from this place.”
Nel was about to argue about Thanatas coming with them, but Sophia glared at her. She didn’t need more time to be wasted on a pointless argument and Sophia had a feeling that Thanatas was coming no matter what.
Nel sighed in resignation before she moved behind the chapel podium and closed her eyes as she raised one finger. That finger glowed with a bright light which was followed by motions that appeared as if she was drawing something. After a few moments of these motions, a magic circle appeared before Nel and she pressed on it. Another circle appeared on the floor over some grates between the pews. The grates retracted and a set of stairs were raised. The stairs led underground.
Nel warned that the Sealed Caverns had not been used in centuries and were likely in a state of disrepair so they had to be careful.
Everyone walked down the stairs and into a long hallway which eventually expanded into a dilapidated room full of cracked tiling, blue flames for lighting, crumbling arches and a faded white circle on the center of the floor with a star inside.
“Now this place feels more like my comfort zone,” Thanatas commented.
Two doors were in front of them. When they checked the right door, it led to a dead end with a giant block with a star on it blocking the way. The left door led under a series of blocks and through a large hole that appeared to have once been a doorway into another room where a metal monster made of tarnished bronze awaited them. Thanatas gave a small demonstration of her power by blasting the brute with icy winds which caused the monster to recoil. Fayt infused his sword with ice and slashed away at it. The spellcasters of the group bombarded it with Ice Needles which caused it to vanish.
With the Brute dead, the group looked around the room since there was nowhere else to go. Roger checked a statue that was at the left corner of the room since he trusted his treasure seeking instincts. Sure enough, he found a switch on the statue and pressed it. He wasn’t sure what that did until Peppita pointed out that the blocks they had passed earlier had started moving.
Nothing else was found in the room so they had to backtrack to the first room, avoiding the ascending and descending blocks that would crush them if they weren’t careful.
They went through the right door again and saw that the block that was blocking them earlier was rising and falling. The blocks formed a bridge that allowed them to cross whenever the adjacent blocks were aligned.
At the other side of the bridge was a floating suit of armor that was missing its legs and carried a heavy axe. Nel and Peppita easily handled it by freezing it with their icy daggers.
As the group easily trashed the floating armor, Thanatas decided to hang back for a bit. As strong as the group was, her contributions would have been utter overkill.
With the group as numerous as it was, having everyone fighting the same enemy would not have helped their growth so they started taking turns in facing enemies.
Narrow corridors with moving blocks awaited them in the next part of the caverns. They had to time their movements in order to avoid being crushed.
The group came across a room with a number of floating armors and humanoids wearing red and white baggy clothes and magician hats and were carrying staves. The group split up with those who could use ice abilities dealing with the armors while everyone else pummeled the mages to a pulp.
Mirage showed that she and Cliff learned from the same school of combat, but there were some differences in their styles. Cliff used the style of a boxer when he fought. While he did use his arms and legs, he primarily used his fists. Mirage’s style used a balance of her fists and her feet. She used some of the same techniques that Cliff used, but she had some of her own; some that she taught to Maria.
Maria’s style involved using short ranged attacks, like what she learned from Mirage, and long ranged attacks from her phase gun. She used what little mastery she had over her symbological gene to alter her blaster’s ammunition and deliver different types of ranged attacks against her enemies.
After dealing with the room full of enemies, the group moved through another narrow hallway with moving blocks and through a doorway to encounter another bronze brute. With the fighting area so small this time, Maria held the monster in place by creating a magnetic charge around herself. With the beast’s metallic composition, the Magnetic Field held it in place while Cliff and Mirage pummeled it to death with their Electric Fists techniques.
A pair of stationary blocks forced the group to take a northward hallway and east into a room filled with renegade mages who were dealt with swiftly by Lyra who used her energy blades to decapitate them. The last unfortunate mage ended up impaled all over his body by numerous afterimages of Lyra.
The Elicoorians stared at the display in awe. None of them really knew what kind of power would allow them to create blades of light from their hands.
It was then that Adray knew that the pony would be far more challenging than anything he had ever faced in his lifetime. He would need to train harder before he considered challenging her to a duel.
As they walked down the corridor, Roger noticed a strange looking wall that looked like someone had sealed the doorway in stone but the stone had eroded and left large cracks. The young menodix had a feeling that something was beyond the sealed wall. He took out his drill arm and started drilling away at the stone. Everyone looked at Roger with confusion until his efforts bore fruit and the stone broke apart, revealing a hidden doorway.
“How did you know that was there?” Fayt asked.
Roger took a proud pose. “I may not look like it, but I do have an eye for detail.”
“That’s great kid, but don’t get too full of yourself,” Peppita warned.
“Kid? You look like you’re the same age as me!” Roger shot back.
“I’m fourteen, how old are you?”
“Twelve, so it’s not that much of a difference.”
“You’re not even a teenager yet so you’re still a kid,” Peppita countered.
Sophia ignored the banter and proceeded down the hallway. Thanatas followed her. They walked past an empty room and into a room with two archer statues and a pair of sarcophagi at two sides of the room.
A familiar call drew Sophia to the sarcophagus on the east side of the room. She briefly remembered Melt’s words.
“The rotted corridor, guarded by archers of the gods. The Sun King sleeps in his coffin. What shall the mute corpse say?”
Sophia pushed open the lid to the sarcophagus and revealed another shard of the Ihan Crystal. To Thanatas’ disappointment, there was no corpse in there.
“Another of Gerald’s memory crystals?” Thanatas wondered. “How many does this make so far?”
“Four,” Sophia answered. “I’m over halfway through this little side quest.”
“Little by little the mystery of you unravels.”
“What do you know about me anyway?” Sophia asked out of curiosity.
“Personally? Not much. I know you inherited your psychic and biological powers from your grandfather and your mother, but they couldn’t handle the power so it kept getting passed down until it ended up with you. I know you have a brother who didn’t inherit those powers, but that’s a mystery for you to figure another day. I also know that because you possess the family bloodline, you also inherit our immortality.”
Sophia snapped her head to the undead knight, “Wait, what?!”
Thanatas smirked, “Yep, once you reach the peak of your physical maturity, all aging will come to a screeching halt.”
“You say you’re my cousin, just how old are you anyway?”
“A little over five thousand. I’m practically a newborn compared to how old some of the other family members are.”
After that, and collecting the shard, Thanatas had to guide Sophia back to the group as she had to process the newest revelation. She had been getting a lot of those lately and she was concerned that they were starting to wear on her.
Thanatas informed the group that the path ahead looped back to one of the previous rooms while Roger bragged about finding a switch that was on the statue in the sealed room he drilled into earlier.
With no other leads on where to go, the group looked around the caverns to find out what the switch did after it was flipped.
They returned to the room with the stationary blocks to find that they were moving again and that a large hole was behind the blocks. Everyone ran under one block and into the next room.
The room was empty except for a door that looked a little different than the other doors. Given the distance they traveled, they suspected that they finally found the door into the Shrine of Kaddan.
Before they advanced any further, a blinding flash of light invaded their sight which quickly faded. The next thing they saw was a large black void in the center of the room. A red circle appeared in the void along with a series of triangles and yellow circles composed of letters formed.
Twilight was all too familiar with that circle. It was used when bringing something into the Eternal Sphere. What was coming, she had no idea. However, she warned everyone of the incoming foe.
Emerging from the circle was a floating suit of armor without legs and had a green banner adorning it. Unlike the armors from earlier, these carried two swords instead of a heavy axe.
However, as ominous as its appearance was, there was nothing about the monster that made it much tougher than a regular armor monster. Sophia quickly ended the metal knight by blasting it with a powerful blast of psionic power that shattered it.
With that diversion ended, the group prepared themselves as they approached the door to Aquaria’s sacred shrine.