Chronicles of the Exalted Sun Child

Book 18-4.2: A Rakkisgrad Day

Etching the runescript lines on the canteen had been simple, even if she had to materialise her own inscribing pen from Animus. The stainless steel proved to be a passable medium for the lines, and the only hang-up was how to power the inscriptions without using Animus, considering the dearth of energies in the atmosphere—elemental, esoteric, or dimensional. The dimensional energies should have been more prevalent considering the plane seemed to sit in an island of Void that was only loosely connected to the material layer, but she wasn’t really qualified to make that judgment based on the quick look she had. She certainly couldn’t examine things now. Either way, feeding the inscription Animus seemed to be the only way to go, and a single lumen was actually enough to operate the enchantment long enough to fill the canteen. Rakkisgrad by day was rather humid, which also made the heat feel worse. She assumed she’d need a couple of lumens to power it when it was less humid. 

Of greater concern was how to power the spatial expansion enchantment she intended to sew into the backpack. 

“Rotter. I forgot to grab a sewing kit,” Yuriko muttered. The thrift store was quite a distance back towards Lucian’s apartment, but perhaps she could find a convenience store nearby? As there were two work sites in close proximity, there might have been some small businesses that sprang up. 

She fidgeted for several long moments while she thought of other things she needed to do. Well, meditation on the Ennoia of the Unyielding Guardian Sword would help, but she preferred doing that where she wouldn’t be interrupted. She was here to keep an eye on her brother, at least until she was sure that the bloodsucking woman and her cohorts didn’t attempt to use him as leverage against her. Once again, she was prodded by her conscience, but this time, it was to make sure that Amalia’s mum wasn’t similarly implicated. It was a pity she couldn’t have two incarnations active here, nor did she feel she could send a manifestation-powered flying sword to keep watch. 

Well, she could do that, but it was probably better to leave a manifestation there rather than send it flying across the sky. Even during daylight, a sunblade would be eye-catching, much less one used during darkness. Then, there was the problem of the hungry plane’s reaction to her first sunblade. She doubted that the construct would last as long as it should. No, she’d go visit home later, after Lucian returned to his apartment. Probably. 

For now, yeah, she should grab a needle and thread to stitch the runescript pattern for spatial expansion. As for how to keep the enchantment active despite the emptiness of the atmosphere, she could add an Animus storage enchantment along with the expansion set, then keep it topped up. As long as the bag remained with her, she could easily keep it fed, but if it was stolen or lost, well, the contents would burst out as soon as the enchantment failed. A pity she didn’t have jade to use as the focal point, as that would keep Animus within the system without degrading. Not that she needed all that much space quite yet, but it was inevitable.  

She ambled down in the general direction of Diamond Residences, having remembered a few convenience stores along the way. She found one, and luckily, they sold sewing kits for two Weyrmarks. She paid separately for the thread at about fifty pence or half a Weyrmark. She grabbed half a dozen spools since she could also sew runescript lines on her clothes, mostly for cleanliness and durability. She picked dark grey as the colour for the threads so that it didn’t stand out too much. Most of her colour choices were dark anyway, at least for this incarnation. 

As she made her way back, a shop caught her eye. It was called Rent-a-Comp, and the display wall was plastered with colourful posters of varied characters, though the title on top was the same: The Masquerade Saga. Each character was clad and armed with gear reminiscent of what magi and warriors wore in Bresia, though all of them had a childish bent to their looks — large eyes and comparatively larger heads compared to the bodies. 

“A computer shop?” Yuriko murmured as the memories trickled in. She peeked inside the store and saw three rows of booths, each one containing a computer set up that looked quite primitive compared to what was available in Astoria, much less Dragon Fall City or Shangria Station. For one thing, the display monitors were horribly clunky and took up most of the desktop space compared to the relatively flat ones in Astoria, or the ones made out of projected light from Shangria. 

The shop was also rather noisy, with clashing sounds coming from different booths as well as the music from the shopkeeper’s station. Yuriko wandered inside, curious. She nodded at the shopkeeper, who barely glanced at her. 

Contrary to what she expected, most of the customers didn’t have The Masquerade Saga on their screens. Most were on word processors or spreadsheets, and a few were browsing on the Network, she assumed. The layout was similar enough to Astoria despite being less advanced. Nothing quite like REI-space in both Dragon Fall and Shangria, in which the operator could project their consciousness within a dreamscape-esque area. 

Her curiosity satisfied, she walked back out of the computer shop, though she noted its location. The Network was where she could find information, hopefully, even if what was available was likely censored. 

As she returned to her original rooftop space and settled to sew the runescript patterns on her backpack, fragmented memories surfaced about the plane’s general geography. Westenland was on the west side of the plane, as evidenced by the name, and there were two nations north and south of it. The Nurevian Confederacy to the north, across the Nurev Mountain range, which spanned across the border through the entire width of the continent. To the south was the Fiore Republic, which was across the Crooked Gap, a series of rivers that crisscrossed the land and also connected the Inner and Outer Oceans. 

She didn’t know much about Fiore, but Nurevia had been the site of a catastrophe not twenty years ago that also unleashed the same drug that her mum was addicted to, Stardust. Her father…Cirrus Roth had died at that border a decade ago, a soldier killed by the hungry corpses that crossed the mountains like a landslide. The tide had been stemmed after several months at the cost of millions of lives, and even now, the threat was still there. 

Yuriko paused to consider. Amalia was filled with dread, but it occurred to her that going across the northern country would be a way to disappear with relative ease. She just had to make sure that she could fight the hungry corpses. But then again, the border was more than a thousand longstrides away. 

The better way to get to the eastern continent was still probably through the Inner Sea. But that route would cost Weyrmarks, that’s for sure. Unless she stowed away on a vessel. 

It took an hour to complete the basic patterns, and another hour to finish all of the details. Afterwards, she infused the pattern with Animus and observed the expansion. She had intended for the bag to hold at least three cubic paces, but the shabbiness of the materials only gave her two. That wasn’t so bad, except the Animus depleted at twice the usual speed, too. It was still workable as she simply had to increase the Animus storage part of the runescript lines. She ended up using almost all of the spools she purchased, and even so, the threads were likely to degrade in a few years. She could probably detect it fraying before the failure point, though. 

By the time she finished fiddling with the backpack, it seemed that the work shift was over. Yuriko sighed as she tracked Amalia’s brother and his roommates. The other three were young men of different builds, with Lucian being the second shortest. All of them had tanned skin suitable for working under the harsh glare of the sun. Her brother had short-cropped hair that was the same brown as Amalia’s, while the tallest roommate had his hair in cornrows, with the tips just brushing the nape of his neck. The other two had clean-cut hair, though damp with sweat buildup from under their hard hats. 

Contrary to what she expected, they didn’t head directly home. Instead, despite the somewhat anxious look on Lucian’s face, all four of them headed to the same computer shop she had run across earlier. Yuriko didn’t want to peek to see what they were doing, but it also ratcheted up her curiosity. The display window was also too full of posters to see through, so it was doubly annoying. It took an hour before they left, with a lot less tension on their shoulders. 

She followed them back to their tenement, where they changed out of their work clothes, and then split up. Lucian went out and caught a bus. Yuriko followed along the rooftops and soon enough, found that he had headed to Mum’s place. Or rather, where Amalia lived. 

That apartment was called Willowood Homes, and mum’s was on the fourth floor, unit 403. The neighbourhood was filled with similarly sized and shaped buildings, so Yuriko moved around until she had a vantage point where she could observe through mum’s windows. There was no light coming out of it, which wasn’t all that odd despite it being seven in the evening. The Season of Fire typically had longer daylight hours anyway, and it looked like Iunius was the same. 

She didn’t think Lucian had the house keys, though, and sure enough, he emerged back on the street ten minutes later, frowning. She still had no intention of showing herself. She’d rather avoid getting entangled more than she already was. 

He anxiously paced up and down the pavement for a few minutes before he marched to a payphone booth by the street corner. He made two calls, and one of them was to her pager, which simply asked her to meet him at his apartment as soon as she could. Of course, she didn’t intend to follow it, but she wondered if he actually saw her note. 

Afterwards, he marched off to the bus stop, presumably to return to his apartment, or maybe to grab dinner. She was also starting to get hungry again, and a quick check on her physique had her at ten percent compared to her 1st-Incarnation. Neither body was able to match her true body simply from the density of Radiance that was packed there. That, and her true body wasn’t mixed with something else. While Radiant Physique changed her current body, it didn’t eliminate everything, and that little bit of impurity, as well as the fact that she wasn’t supported by the Colligia of Radiance, limited her. 

She followed Lucian until he was fifty paces from the bus stop when a white van pulled up next to him. The doors opened, and several men in mercenary gear jumped out and made to grab him. 

She would have interfered, but before she could close, a car pulled up next to the van, and the passenger riding shotgun popped out an assault rifle and opened fire at the mercenaries and the vehicle. 

The  woman in the driver's seat yelled to Lucian, “Get in!”

Lucian, eyes wide with surprise and fear, barely hesitated and leapt for the car door. He clambered inside while the mercenaries returned fire. The bullets bounced off the car’s hood and door, inexplicably repelled by the thin metal. 

As soon as Lucian got his upper body in the backseat, the car’s engine revved up, and with the squeal of burning rubber, they burst ahead and away from the mercenaries, leaving them and Yuriko staring.