Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Book 18-4.3: A Rakkisgrad Day

So…Yuriko had two choices on what to do. Actually, three, but she sort of discarded the third, which was to check the apartment for Amalia’s mum. 

First was to either subdue the mercenaries, who were probably flunkies of the bloodsucker, or trail behind them to find their base. Second was to go after Lucian and make sure he was alright. 

Yuriko nodded to herself. Now, the choice was an immediate confrontation or to follow them until she discovered their base. Granted, it was just as likely that they headed to a safehouse or that they would be contacted by their employer by phone rather than a face-to-face meeting. Either way, she’d have something to investigate. 

Hmmm, it was also just as likely that she’d be detected since none of her skills and techniques lent themselves to stealth. From the way she often got caught when she tried to be sneaky, it was just as likely that her connection to Radiance made hiding difficult. Then again, she could go by aggressive stealth, couldn’t she? One where the fact that nobody was left alive to tattle on her meant that she successfully remained hidden. 

Ah, but though Rakkisgrad’s technology was worse than Astoria's, she couldn’t be certain that there wouldn’t be any technological aids to either detect her or keep records. So she’d have to be careful anyway. 

While she mused on her choices, the mercenaries picked themselves up and, after a brief inspection for injuries, piled into their vehicle and drove off. Well, that solved that quandary. She followed along the rooftops, but once they moved out of the tenement areas, she either had to jump down to the street level or cross the larger gaps between taller buildings. Those weren’t quite as common as tenements, and the roofs stopped being conveniently flat roof decks to sloped roofs. 

Since she wasn’t really hiding at this point, she unleashed her perception aura, which allowed her to pick her landings carefully; her foot would probably punch through the galvanised steel roof sheets. The sun had set for half an hour, and the van had crossed ten longstrides of convoluted road, by the time it pulled into the basement parking of a four-storey, red brick apartment building. 

Rakkisgrad’s architecture was similar enough to Astoria's that she wondered if this plane’s creator, or perhaps creators, were the same. Perhaps they were related? But then again, the architecture could have developed independently. She recalled the varied cities and settlements she’s been to in the Chaos Sea, and probably because all of them were occupied by humans and human-adjacent beings, the development was similar in nature. Either way, this particular insight was how residential buildings all had individual windows relatively small in comparison to commercial buildings, some of which had glass facades. It was a curious thought, and probably gave insight into the quality of people who designed and lived in these dwellings. 

Her perception aura couldn’t penetrate the walls, and it wasn’t because the buildings were protected from her sight. Instead, her Anima was comparatively weak. Then again, her 2nd-incarnation body had been split from her 1st-incarnation body instead of the true body. She could feel her Anima starting to expand and grow, but the process would take several Seasons. From the synchronisation, she also knew her 1st-incarnation body was also weakened terribly, but was already in the process of recovery. The time this body of hers had been in temporal stasis while piercing the barrier had its detriments. 

Either way, some of the windows were open, so she slipped her perception aura inside, though she had to project a cone to do so. Since she wasn’t maintaining a kinesis field, she could actually project several cones with little issue, though at her current reach, the widest and furthest point of the cone was only sixty paces. It was barely enough to cover the entire building and some of the other structures around the block. She also focused a cone down the parking garage path, but was more wary about extending it since she was probably quite visible to anyone with esoteric senses. Like that hunter woman. 

Most of the apartments looked reasonably normal, Yuriko decided. People in the middle-class income bracket are probably living their lives. The perception cone aimed at the mercenaries revealed that while they parked their van, they weren’t headed to the lifts that led up to the building. Instead, they moved towards the stairs that led to a different basement level, split up, and got into two vehicles on opposite sides of the parking space. A single mercenary got into a light blue sedan, while the other three got into a metallic brown sports utility vehicle. The SUV exited through the ramp before the one guy actually started his car. 

Considering that the loner made a call with a phone attached to his car, Yuriko opted to wait, and, well, to eavesdrop. 

“Hey, boss lady, mission failed.” The presumed leader of the mercs said casually as the other end picked up. 

“Explain.” The voice was harder, and while Yuriko didn’t hear the hunter woman say anything last night, she could easily imagine that this was her voice. Of course, it was just a supposition on her part. 

“Someone interfered.”

“Was it the anomaly?”

“No, boss. A green sedan with two people in it, armed with a K-52 rifle, fired a mag then picked him up.”

“I see. No sign of any other interference?”

“None.” 

“Tsk.” 

“Er…”

“You’ll get your base pay, but you failed, so nothing more than that.”

“Bullet damage!”

“Hazards of the business, you know, but if you can’t afford the reps, just bring it to the chop shop. They’ll add to your tab.” 

“What about the injured?”

“Don’t lie to me. None of your men was hit.”

“Haah. Yeah, boss, sor—” The man blinked, pulled the handset away from his ear to glare at it, then grunted and slammed it down on the cradle. He chuckled to himself, then turned on the ignition. The engine turned over a couple of times before catching, then he drove out of the parking basement. 

Yuriko hummed as she considered what to do. It was doubtful that he’d actually head over to his boss’ place, and if she followed, he’d likely either bring her to a nightclub or back to his home. Neither of which would be that helpful. She took out a small black book that had a list of names, telephone numbers, and addresses, flipped over to the back pages and wrote down the car’s license plate, as well as the white van’s. She added a note that said: bloodsucker merc, attempted kidnapping of bro. 

Not feeling up to going on a probably fruitless chase, she made her way back towards Mum’s apartment, though she had the thought to go for dinner first. It was likely that her bro didn’t get in the apartment, which meant mum wasn’t home. That either meant she was in a Stardust parlour, was at one of her boytoys’ places, or had been abducted too. Either way, Amalia had some stuff in that apartment that she could use, mainly some Weyrmarks in a coin can, and some reference books from school. 

Before that, though, she found another cheap diner and ate a heavy dinner for about nine Weyrmarks, for a couple of meat sandwiches as well as a sweet, slushy drink. Afterwards, she headed back to Willowwood Homes. 

She pulled over her hood and hunched her shoulders. Her sweatpants were loose enough that with her legs bent, she lost a good two inches from her height. Coupled with the slouch, she was just a couple of inches taller than her old height, certainly not something too noticeable. She climbed the stairs to Mum’s floor. The hallway lights were dim, and the one at the end flickered. Apartment 403 was a door away from where the stairs emerged. The lift rattled loudly, though it passed the floor to go up another couple of storeys. 

Once she stood in front of mum’s apartment, Yuriko extended her Anima perception around the gaps of the door. The rooms inside were dark, and there wasn’t anyone there. 

She also didn’t have a key. Yuriko frowned and wondered why Amalia didn’t have a set. She was sure the girl lived here, though maybe she did have one but lost it in the kerfluffle. Either way, she didn’t want to kick the door down, and if she had her Animakinesis usable…

Huh. She was able to cast the Cleanse spell, so maybe she could cast the Helpful Hand spell instead. The terminus for the cast must be set inside the apartment; it wouldn’t be helpful at all. It was a one-circle spell, which was the simplest thing to use, requiring only five somatic components to cast. Ah, and Animus, since the plane had a dearth of available energy. 

Did her greater self convert the components from somatic to runescript before? Yuriko closed her eyes and delved into her available memories and found nothing. But that wasn’t much of a problem since the principles of spell component conversion were simple for low circle spells anyway. She wrestled with the exercise for about five minutes using all six of her strands of consciousness, before she realised she only needed to change the last component to runescript in order to originate the spell where she etched the line. A quick experiment revealed that she could use her perception range simply by thickening them in the shape of the runescript sigil just below the point where the plane rejected her. She grinned as she completed four somatic components, then the runescript line just behind the door. She released Animus just as she completed the spell, and the runescript sigil drew all of it. A translucent forcefield in the shape of her hand materialised right where she wanted it to, and soon enough, she unlocked the door and pulled it open. 

The door opened into a short hallway barely a couple of paces across. The toilet and bathroom door were immediately to her left, and there was a shoe closet to her right. The combined living and dining room was ahead, and the kitchen was separated from the rest by a counter. Beyond that were the doors that opened to the individual bedrooms. 

The place was dishevelled, but that was the most charitable way to describe it. A mess. A pigsty. Covered in dust and other filth, maybe? Sadly, this wasn’t unusual. 

She flipped open the room’s light by habit, entered, and locked the door behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the answering machine blinking with a message light. She was half certain it was Lucian calling about her, but she ignored it for now. She couldn’t actually tell if Mum was taken from the apartment or if she was just out. There were no signs of struggle, but if the earlier events were anything to go by, the bloodsuckers might have taken her while on the road.

Her temples throbbed. Amalia’s resentment called for her to be certain of Mum’s fate, but she didn’t actually know where to start looking. Well, probably the drug den five blocks away. Memory Lane was ostensibly a massage place, but they offered Stardust on the sly, in the back room. Well, the first thing was to raid her room. Unfortunately, her coin bank was empty, with clear signs of being forced open. Well, that answered that. Yuriko sighed. Mum was probably there. 

Since her coins were gone, the only things she had to retrieve were her books, pens, and probably spare notebooks. She quickly retrieved a geography textbook, skimmed the contents, then stuffed it into her bag. It probably wouldn’t be all that useful, but Amalia didn’t really like that subject, so her memories were lacking. Afterwards, she grabbed a pen case, a mostly empty journal, and a pocket book that she barely glanced at, but her hand automatically took. She blinked at the well-loved pages, shrugged, and carefully tucked it into a smaller compartment in her backpack. Once she was done, she headed back out. 

Of course, somebody saw her enter mum’s apartment, and they probably saw the news earlier, because as she walked out into the hallway, she heard police sirens blaring, and other doors slamming shut.