Terrel scrounged her memory for an answer to that question but came up short. "Honestly, I don't know," she admitted. "My gut says that using a higher profile one is probably a bad idea," the woman added, nodding towards the pad at the center. Who knew what they'd find on the other end of that one? Thankfully, Cher Plek wasn't exactly the greatest tourist attraction in the game. Most people knew it for the humid climate, dense bogs, and giant spiders. She expected a lovely trip.

"I don't know where the rest of these go exactly, but maybe we can find some clues around the room."

"I suppose so," Rua replied, stepping past her and going deeper into the circular chamber. The swordsman glanced at the nearest door, checking for any writing on it, before finally returning his sword to its scabbard. It was clear there were no tangible dangers in here... yet. "Well. It's not like they can ban us for using it, can they?"

Duff looked around, bare foot padding against the cold metal deckplating. "Bekka! Luir!" He called out loudly. "This 'ere is Bec. We found him in the gun cabinet."

Across the center walkway, Bekka tilted her head, gazing to the short stowaway. "Bloody hell. We had a stowaway?" Her mismatched eyes latched onto Bec, eying him curiously.

Terrel picked up her feet and began walking slowly, headed generally for the center. As she approached, the woman made sure to avoid getting too close to any of the gateways, as if walking next to one might suck her in. The center grew nearer, though, and Terrel observed a pattern of sorts. The coloring on the floor was different as she walked across the room, and near the center it was almost all blue, as if the lone pad stood within an ocean.

Looking around, her eyes scanned the gateways, trying to find something that looked familiar. After a short while, though, her gaze fell on one that struck a chord. It was made of stone, and it looked as if it had towers on the top with floating bits around it, a general purple aura seeming to exude from its structure.

"Huh," she said, not really sure what to make of it. "Hey Rua, doesn't this one sort of remind you of Minervum?" She pointed to it.


---

Luir blinked in surprise, only now realizing that this man really was even more of a stranger here than she was, odd as that might be. Bec, he called himself? She was not yet sure what to say, though, so she kept quiet, only nodding to him wordlessly.

Bec waved awkwardly to the two women. "Nice weather we're having, eh? That is, if you like it when it rains shrapnel." He said dryly, if a bit nervously. "And before you ask, yes the gun cabinet was cramped. I'm going to spring for the economy plus seats, next time."

Rua moved over to where Terrel was, and examined the door she was referring to. The contours of the doorway, the texture and color, and the floating ornaments were all taken into consideration. After a moment, in which Relayia finally relaxed enough to look around herself, he stepped back to take the whole thing in.

"... it does," he agreed, frowning as he did so. He then turned in a slow circle, looking throughout the entire chamber, and viewing each gateway in turn. They're all different, the swordsman realized. Each one had its own unique design. Some looked similar to one another, others were radically different, and those with the similarities, for the most part, were grouped together. It was like...

"... they all have their own themes, Terrel," he said as it dawned on him. "Regional themes! Look, this one looks like Minervum--" he pointed at the one they had examined, then at another one--"And that one right there, that looks like the aesthetic for Kallagulia."

The doorway in question was of a darker material, like a blending of stone and metal. It was all sharp angles, and it gleamed where the light hit it. The top of the doorframe seemed to tower over the others, reaching sharp points, and it framed a symbol he couldn't quite make out at this distance, but if it wasn't the in-game symbol for the Stamarian Empire, he'd eat his boots. The entire doorway looked themed after the Imperial Citadel, or maybe the Onyx Throne.

"I bet the themes lead to each specific area," he theorized, finally grinning since they started this crazy plan. For once, something was going right today!

Morning was still a ways off, but the barest hints of the night sky fading had begun--if anyone looked out at the cold landscape of Kouchi, at its snowy mountain ranges, they could see the slightest of contrasts between the land and the sky. And like the mountains below them, what clouds in the sky were also contrasted to the coming of morning.

It was then, as a gunship flew over an empty, frozen valley, that it appeared from out of a mountain to the north.

It hovered in the sky, moving past the range at a steady pace. Shaped vaguely like an arrowhead, a vessel that dwarfed the gunship appeared, propelled by a pair of ribbed, boxlike engines at its back. The bridge of the airship stood out between and ahead of the engines, giving an unparalleled view of the V-shaped exposed deck surrounding the airship's cabin. The machine was framed by twin triangular sails on either side, spreading out like peculiar wings. Beneath the vessel, twin cylinders were mounted, their ends tapering into sleek spikes etched in runes. At the prow of the ship, a massive figurehead was carved out of stone and metal, forming the roaring head of a beast--or perhaps a demon. Twin horns curved out from either side of it, and cruel fangs adorned its gaping maw. Its eyes glowed a bright orange in the night.

The deck was alight, as floodlights illumined it for its crew to see and move about without issue. Beneath the vessel, more floodlights blazed, illuminating the ground beneath it.

And along either side of the prow, painted in shining color, was the unmistakable symbol of the Stamarian Empire.

Bekka shook her head, smiling faintly at Bec's words. "Might want to let the pilot know that you're even on board, next time." She said simply.

Before she could add anything more, there was a muffled curse from the pilot's seat.

The muted roar of the rotors and engines of their own gunship dulled even further. The shift of weight noticeable to all inside as the vessel pulled up to a slow hover.

"Boss." the short Lancy's voice was now devoid of all amusement, though a touch of confusion could be heard in his tone. "We got . . an airship. Still a few kliks out."

The mood of the vessel and the soldiers inside suddenly changed. Both Duff and Bekka seemed to perk up at the notice, their eyes gleaming with an inner light. The armored figure of George loosened his grip on his rifle, seemingly suddenly more at ease.

Duff spun, bare foot tapping even faster on the deckplating. "Bekka, 'luv. 'Ave 'N blik, eyeah?"

Bekka nearly bounded from her seat, hopping up to the pilot's raised deck, resting her hand on the pilot's seat as she gazed at the readings. "Duff, she's Stamarian. Thinking she be a wee bit mad we put a pair 'o holes in her prison."







Edited by Ajax on February 2, 2014 at 18:44:47

"Huh," Terrel let out, trying to put the pieces together. She hadn't been to Kallagulia, but Rua had mentioned he was from there, right? She didn't know what it meant, but she could try and find something else. Moving away from the center, she conjured a mental image of a city she had only visited once--it was a city in Cher Plek.

After a short search, she found one on the same side as the Core pad as Kallagulia--you might have called it 'down' if you wanted to look at it that way. This portal looked as if it were held together by prayers and duck-tape, with a wooden frame that had more nails coming out of it than sticking in. She waved a hand to Rua.

"This one over here--I'd bet my life it's Rogueport." What did it all mean?

---

A rare darkness fell over her face at the words she managed to pick up. Stamarians? Bekka thought they were just upset over the prison breakout, but what if that wasn't it? An Outsider had once told her a story of a man who fled from God on a ship, only to put all his friends in peril when his maker chased after him.

It unsettled her a great deal.

"Rogueport?" Rua said, sounding wary as he followed after Terrel. "You've been to Rogueport?"

He suddenly shook his head, as he remembered just what kind of class Terrel had seemed to have developed in the game. "Never mind. Of course you've been to Rogueport."

He sighed, and examined the doorway. Green eyes trailed down the doorway until they met the floor, and he blinked in surprise. For the first time, he noticed the coloring of the floor--really noticed it. From the center of the chamber it was blue, until it neared the doorways. It was blue right up until it met the doorway they were looking for--at the sides, it was yellow, and behind the frame, it had become green. He turned around, looking at the Minervum-themed doorframe across the room, centered in more green. Only a few of the doors were placed on blue floor; the rest were on colors of green, white, yellow, and brown.

He turned back to the doorway Terrel found, and took a step back from it. "... okay, that's clever," he muttered. "Terrel, look at the floor and tell me that isn't a bloody global map."

The airship now seemed center stage to gunship's cockpit view, framed between two mountain ranges. The lights emanating from the vessel caused its silver and white armor to gleam brightly against the black inner frame and the darkness of the dying night. The bow of the ship had turned until it was directly facing the gunship, pointing both that frightening figurehead and the twin rune-covered spikes directly at them.

Floodlights on the vessel suddenly turned, aimed straight at the pilots of the gunship. Any pretenses of not being spotted were gone. The radio suddenly crackled, and a voice broke through.

"Hailing the unidentified Tsuminar gunship," came a crisp female voice through the speakers. "Come in, gunship. This is the airship Wolfram. Please respond."

The Wolfram, the woman had called the mighty vessel before them. Some of the occupants may have recognized the name of the personal airship belonging to the notorious player, the White Devil.

Terrel shot the man an indignant look at his comment, muttering under her breath in response, "I didn't say I'd been to Rogueport before." But the point was lost already. He was engrossed in his study of the room, and she was happy to let him do it; it was no small part of her that presumed she might spend hours inside this room without figuring it out.

And then he got it.

"A map?" she responded, uncertainly. Geography wasn't her strong subject. But... even as he said it, she could sort of put things together. "Bloody hell, I think you're right," the woman admitted after some more consideration, "so that one over there would be in the mainland of Cher Plek?"

She pointed at a gateway not far from the Rogueport one. It was made of stones that seemed to take steps in toward each other as they got taller, reminding her of an Aztec temple in a way.

"I think so," Rua said with a nod to her idea. "In fact that might be a doorway to the Earth Temple."

He looked around the room, once more taking it all in now that he and Terrel had discerned the secret that lay in its design. The overall representation of the room was crude, as far as world maps go, but the idea it represented was clever. Definitely clever. "You and your friends hit a jackpot here, Terrel," he told the girl. She could easily tell in his voice that he was impressed.

He turned back to the doorways in the Cher Plek part of the room map. "Well, we've got two choices to make, I guess," he said. "We can head to Rogueport, maybe get some item supplies for the journey..." which, he figured, risked them getting something stolen. It was freaking Rogueport, after all. "... or we can head into the heartland right away and start looking for anything these books tell us."

Dumping them right into potential enemy territory, potentially undersupplied for anything that they might encounter, but they'd do so with anyone else none the wiser, and no risk of any criminal players' guild taking an interest in them. Rua scratched the back of his head for a moment. "I think it'll be evening in Cher Plek by now," he noted. "Nighttime arrivals might complicate either option."

Bekka sighed, craning her neck to look at the wiry, energetic Duff. "Ons is in die moeilikheid, gereed wees?" She called out.

With a manic grin, Duff clapped his hands, gesturing to the armored George. A moment later he caught the pair of boots tossed his way, kneeling down to don the hard leather combat boots. "Luir." He called out, "Bec. We might be in a touch of annoyance. Take those straps," he pointed to the x-shaped safety harnesses on each jumpseat. "And pull them down over your head. If you have any trouble. Just ask me, I will help." He added on, enunciating each word carefully so as to be understood.

Back on the raised pilot's deck, Bekka booted the short form of Lancy out of the primary seat. Strapping herself in, tapping her mic and taking the throttle in short order. "Airship Wolfram, this is Gunship HelDottir, Based out of Firebase Outland Five." She called out, keeping her voice calm and orderly, referencing a small firebase the Tsuminarian military kept on the far side of the mountains.

Most definitely a ways away from where they were now, but the only possible location for their gunship to logically have come from. Especially considering the fact that the make of the vessel and the IFF it projected tagged it as a Tsuminarian gunship. The Airship hadn't opened fire immediately, which lent hope to the idea that their cover wasn't blown quite yet.

"Wolfram, we picked up some odd comm chatter several hours ago, Outland Five dispatched us to track it down. Command said the chatter matched a known pirate unit. Have you seen any signs of pirate activity?" She continued on firmly, keeping the gunship a polite distance away from the airship, but not trying to shy away or run.

"There's been plenty of pirate activity lately," came the response from Wolfram. This time, however, the voice was that of a strong, confident-sounding man. He sounded commanding as he continued speaking over the radio. "We were just notified of an attack on a military prison north of Tsuminar; someone broke in and escaped with a high-value prisoner."

There was a moment of pause, as if to let that sink in for the pilots and crew, and then the man continued to speak. "You're far from your patrol route, HelDottir," he informed them, not stumbling at all at the unusual name for the craft. He sounded like he was consulting something else. "Were you given an order to intercept?"

Bekka rolled her eyes, keeping the gunship the same distance from the airship, hand ready on the throttle. "Negative, Wolfram. Ordered to track, command wanted us to attempt a trace back to their base of operations, hit them where it hurts."

Only silence came back through the radio after Bekka's transmission, and it went on for a few tense moments before it crackled to life again. The male voice answered. "Very well. Proceed on your given course, HelDottir."

The radio then cut off, and the Wolfram started to move once more, angling its bow to port and beginning to accelerate to give the gunship room to continue.

Bekka clicked her mic off. "Duff, Don't like this. Want me to slam a missile up their tail-pipe?"

By now Duff had donned his boots and was sliding effortlessly into a tactical harness. "Nah," He called out. "This world is magiky. That Airship is either gonna try an kill us, or let us live. Doubt we got the weapons to bring 'er down. Fly nice. And easy."

Bekka sighed, clicking her mic back on. "Affirmative, Wolfram. Good hunting." The gunship waggled its tips to the Airship before goosing its engines and rumbling forward on its original path.

The woman could only shrug, "Sounds like a raw deal either way, but I don't suppose either of us went into this expecting peaches and roses." Terrel squared her shoulders, considering the options. Rua was right in that Rogueport would be a mess, but at least it was the evil she knew. Was that a good enough reason to go there?

The thing was, Cher Plek was huge.

Without proper transportation, you could spend six months walking across the bloody thing and you still might not see the end of it. You had a pretty good chance of dying on the way too. In reality, guessing wrong might end up taking more time than teleporting to Kallagulia, figuring out where to go, and arranging the right trip from there.

"I don't like the idea of just flipping a coin. Is there anything in either of those books that can help us?" she asked at last, finally breaking down and considering the books. She hated the things, so why did they have to be so essential?

---

Luir fumbled with the harness but didn't apply much effort into putting it on, her spirit weighing heavy in her heart. She turned to the woman who had not yet proven to have blood on her hands. In her mind, she understood that it didn't make the other woman pure or guiltless, but it was still easier to palate. Besides, she had shown herself a friend as much as she could.

"I know this man," Luir said, though it pained her to admit it. She had never met him personally, but she still knew him. "They call him the White Devil for a reason. He is relentless, unyielding, and, above all, loyal to his masters. I do not know his game, but he would never let the likes of us merely slip through his fingers."

She stood from her seat slowly, placing a hand on the gunship's walls to stabilize herself against the jostling.

"From your world was a man named Jonah, Bekka. Do you remember the story?"

Rua shrugged at Terrel's question, and opened up his menu to retrieve the books. He brought out both in short order, one materializing in his open hand after the other.

He glanced at the two titles for a moment, then chose Tribal Authority in Cher Plek for the time being. He set the other book on the ground before flipping open the first tome. "If he's part of some tribe we can narrow the region down a bit," he told her. Relayia settled down on his shoulder and peered at the open book as he went through its table of contents. "And hopefully wherever it is, it won't be full of spiders."

Christ, he hated spiders.

"Ah," he uttered, a bit surprise. "There's a whole chapter on him in here."

He flipped through the pages until he reached it, and started reading. After several silent minutes, he lowered the book and let out a suffering sigh. "... he has a cult," he announced in a flat tone. "A freaking cult. Or at least he had one, based off in some abandoned temple."

He brought the book back up and continued reading. "Doesn't say where, of course," he said sarcastically. "No, that'd be too convenient for us."

The two vessels parted ways in the early morning. As the gunship sped past, several sets of eyes on the Wolfram's bridge turned towards the one who last spoke to the pilot.

He was a tall, caucasian man, with a lean yet sturdy frame. He stood in white leather boots banded in metal, and he was clad in a distinctive uniform, simple white trousers and an ornate black shirt lined in golden trim, buttoned up to his neck, with a metal clasp at his neck. A brilliant open white coat was draped around it, its hem and collar lined in blue trim. The bottom of the coat was patterned in blue spikes, each tip studded with a small ruby. Blue and gold epaulets lined its shoulders, and each sleeve ended in a large, overturned cuff of blue fabric, with gold trim framing a much larger ruby.

His hands were clad in fingerless, metal-backed black gloves, and one of them had been brought up to a clean-shaven chin. The man's hair was long, reddish-brown in color, pulled back into a ponytail that reached his shoulder blades by a single white ribbon. His eyes, a blue-violet that only the game could produce, were downturned and shadowed by his bangs, as he pondered the encounter.

"You don't buy any of that, do you?" a woman in a Stamarian uniform asked, breaking the silence. The man didn't even glance at her, and instead shook his head.

"Would you?" he asked back. "Do you really believe a single gunship would've been tasked to hunt down pirates daring enough to attack a maximum security military prison?"

The woman slowly shook her head, as did the other players on the Wolfram's bridge. "They have neither the firepower nor the equipment to track down such a group, not on something that small," the man continued, and he spread his arms out in a gesture to the controls of the bridge. "We were given the orders to hunt the pirates down and frag them on sight, and we have all of the resources we need to pull such a feat off. And the quest notification would've told us if we were to get back-up."

A few of the players on the bridge grinned at that. The Paragon was one of the more decorated guilds in the game, and the Wolfram was proof of it. "So what do we do?" someone in mage's robes asked. "We track them using that familiar you had me conjure?"

The man smirked at that--it was too easy to track things sometimes. A simple airborne familiar spawned around the gunship and ordered to latch onto its hull away from its slipstream, and so long as nothing happened to it, they could hunt them down wherever they went until it was dismissed or killed.

He could only imagine that real-life militaries would kill for such inconspicuous tracking measures. "I'd be willing to believe that they were just unaligned players out for a joyride if they didn't claim being part of the military, but there's always the possibility they're not our targets," he told the crew on the bridge. "For now, we let them go, and let the familiar tell us where they go. We'll know soon enough if they're our targets or not."

"They better hope that you're not after them," the woman sitting beside him said. "Really, none of the players we've had to hunt reacted well to the White Devil coming after them."

The White Devil in question chuckled at that. "No, they certainly haven't, have they?" he said. He put a hand on his hip and gestured with the other. "Well, it won't be long before we arrive at the prison and find out if they're the targets or not. Those guys will have to land sometime, and we?"

He smirked. "We do not."

Bekka waved Lancy back to the pilot's seat, switching out with him in a swift move and hopping back down to the main deck. She nodded to Luir, "Jonah and the Whale? Thanks for reminding me." She said dryly. "Duff, if Luir's right, that boy ain't gonna stop. Think you could ask Ma to . . I don't know, cut his account?"

Duff smirked, "Could dood te maak him."

To that, Bekka rolled her eyes. "Let's hold off on that option for now, okay? He's probably a thirteen year old or something. That's low, even for you." Bekka chided with a soft glare. "I think we need to get to the core now, though. Luir offered to help us in," Here she paused, tapping her hand against her pantleg out of habit as she looked to Luir, "If that option is still open, Luir?"

Edited by Ajax on February 4, 2014 at 7:08:36

The Core? That's where they were headed? But how in the blazes were they thinking of getting there...? Bec looked sharply at the woman called Luir. The other woman seemed to expect something of her, in fact, it seemed as if Luir was their way in. Bec had heard of the Core--who hadn't?--but everything he'd heard about it was shrouded in myth and rumor. Some players claimed to have reached it, but at least half of those were probably blatant lies. But if he could get to the Core, he would be at likely the safest place in the entire game...

"If it comes to it, I can help us make our exit. I may not be capable of much if we are to get in a fight, but I'm fairly proficient in most magics that would speed our escape." Bec looked over at Duff, strapped into his chair, his tiny legs sticking out off the seat. Bec, after all, wasn't interested in being caught in a dog fight.

[[shhhh.... :P]]

Marcus had always loved the sea. The gentle washing of the waves against sandy beaches, the salty breeze assailing his sense of smell, the cawing of seagulls overhead... the very image of beauty and serenity.

His stomach heaved, and he gagged as dry acid was forced up his throat and out of his mouth. "Beauty and serenity my virtual behind," he said, wiping the smelly drops off his lips with a sleeve. He glared down at the waters he'd once loved. The sea had been a prominent feature of his dreams, but now that he was on the sea, he wasn't dreaming at all. How ironic was that? His stomach was so upset that he couldn't get a moment's peace on board this ship. He could only pray that he'd be able to collapse onto dry, solid, beautiful land sometime soon.

"Hrmph," Terrel exhaled after waiting--patiently--in silence for Rua to read the dumb book; how did these things always seem to make life harder? Libraries might as well be monuments to pain and suffering for all the experience she had with them. "I'm guessing the other book is probably even more bleak, huh?" Condemned NPCs? Seriously?

---

Luir blinked at the short man. A mage? The Light had sent her a sign, then--it settled the debate in her mind.

"The passage to the Core is still some ways from here, as far as I can feel," she said at last. "I think the White Devil will return for us before you can reach it, but with another magic pool I can take us there right now." Fully restored and rested, she could do it on her own, but in her given state she was far too exhausted to do much of anything by herself.

She faced Bec, asking him directly. "Have you ever linked with another mage before?" Even if he hadn't, the process was routine enough, but she felt time pressing on her neck now with that airship nearby.

---

Sark glanced at Marcus, frowning. "You all right, kid?"

Getting sick wasn't uncommon anymore. Personally, he'd discovered that, while pain was still blocked from the game, being stuck in here for an entire month tended to make the unpleasant sensations filter in a little too easily for your liking.

"Wouldn't surprise me," Rua said off-handedly, half-listening to Terrel as she read. He used his foot to slide the book over to her with a light shove. "You can look through it if you want, though."

He turned his attention back to the book and sighed as he continued reading through it. It just seemed to be a history of the character--it didn't outright state it, but it was growing more and more likely to him that Kasdim-Ur was an NPC. And if he led a cult, he was probably some sort of boss enemy. He sighed and snapped the tome shut with one hand, making a hollow thump in the room. "I dunno, Terrel. I think we'll need to find some sort of information broker, see if we can find another lead."

He lifted up the book as a gesture. "We can probably use this as trade or something with whoever we can find to help," he continued. "But either way... looks like we better head to Rogueport."

He was sure they'd find some sort of broker there. Knowledge in a game is worthwhile too, wasn't it? At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

"No," Marcus said, his face twisted up into knots, "I'm dying." He groaned and leaned farther over the railing, the pixels forming his face tinted green. How weird that that would happen. "What kind of stupid developers," he gagged again as the ship cut through a particularly large wave, "put in seasick sensors?"

He swallowed shakily and glanced over at Sark. "Are we nearly there? Please let us be almost there."

Terrel looked at the book glumly, picking it up as if it were some disgusting object. Go to Rogueport? She flipped through the book and noted quickly that there were no pictures in the thing. Great. Sighing, she glanced to her left and right frustratedly as if to see some way out of this situation; she had imagined things going differently than this. Ironically, though, despite all the portals, she still felt trapped.

"Look," she finally said, letting the book fall to her side--the tone she spoke in was different, the kind that said 'Hey, listen for a sec, would you?'

"Before we go any further, I need to tell you something."

---

With a chuckle, Sark gestured at the harbor of Minervum where the boat was still docked. "I'm afraid not, lad. Boat doesn't leave for another couple hours, remember? Why don't you come to my cabin; there's a tea in this game that removes the motion sickness debuff." The man inclined his head to the side, indicating Marcus should follow him below the deck.

Bec shook his head. "I don't spend much time with other people, so I haven't had the chance. I know the basic theory behind it, but you'll have to guide me through the rest." Who was this woman? Her words seemed to suggest she had a command of teleportation magic, at least that's what her statement seemed to say. Most people were forced to use more mundane means of travel, such as the airships, or boats. Teleportation magic was a rare thing, usually only used by the most powerful, or the angels from the Core, but even theirs was fairly limited.

Bec was curious now. "I'll follow as best I can."

Edited by WillowtheWhisp on February 5, 2014 at 5:50:00

"What is it?" he asked, hefting the tome up onto his unoccupied shoulder. Relayia also looked up at Terrel as she spoke, chirping softly for reasons unknown.

Terrel felt a bit of warmth touch her cheeks, even in the game. She hated talking about this, but he was going to find out sooner or later, and from what she'd seen he didn't much like being kept in the dark.

"I can't read," she admitted finally, the words coming out of her mouth like a single heavy breath. "I'm bloody illiterate. I can do numbers, but not letters or words. I haven't even looked over that message Oracle sent us about the Arcanum Relics, yet, because I haven't had enough time for my program to read it out loud to me."

Well, there it was. Now to see how he took it.

---

Luir nodded, moving across the gunship shakily until she stood behind the two seats for the pilot and copilot. Turning her head, she instructed the short man as clearly as she could--it was good he knew the concept, since that was the most challenging part.

"Open yourself up to your magic supply--just relax and let it almost in," she said, doing the same. After a moment of waiting, she probed for the man's energy and found it. "There, you've got it, now I'll do the rest."

Closing her eyes, she linked with the man, a small shiver going down her spine as the magical power rushed back into her. For such a small man, he was surprisingly strong. With what stamina she had left, she groped for her own magic, the feeling swelling up inside her that much more. Despite the noise, despite the cold, she felt as if the sun itself had lit up inside her, and it felt wonderful.

Opening her eyes, she looked through the window of the cockpit and focused hard.

In the dark night, with dawn still hours away, a brilliant ribbon of light appeared in front of the gunship's path, slicing from top to bottom and then growing in size quickly. A portal in thin air, it lit up the landscape like a bolt of lightning that didn't vanish immediately, forcing the cockpit's glass to polarize in adjustment. The White Devil would see it for sure, but it would not matter.

The ribbon of light expanded until it was wide enough to fit the gunship, the edges golden and the center a brilliant white. The magic coursed through her, pulling at her stamina and threatening to exhaust her, but she held the thing all the same--she didn't need long.

"Hold your course straight for it," Luir instructed, voice weary. She would keep it until they had entered it completely.

Lancy, eternally short but no longer shortest on the gunship, thanks to Bec's discovery. Frowned at the odd light. "Wha-- Boss?" He called out curiously.

Duff and Bekka gazed first to Luir and Bec, then to the light, then back again before Duff's keen eyes finally locked on Bekka's form. "What's this, then?"

For her own part, Bekka sighed. For all his energy, Duff was catching on quicker than some. But still, magical portals he most definitely had never used. "Lancy, push through, and be quick about it." She called out, taking note of Luir's weariness, urging the pilot forward.

The short form of the pilot shrugged, clearly not quite sure what was happening, but something in him was quite used to taking orders from Bekka, and he followed with little hesitation as he urged the Gunship swiftly into the portal. The machine being swallowed up in the light.

In they went, and Luir released the energy as soon as they had cleared the gateway, the portal closing behind them and leaving the crew in quiet blackness. She could feel it, though--they had made it.

A few moments passed, and suddenly lights appeared on all sides of them as if someone had flipped the switch. It was bright at first, but eventually it revealed they were in a large tunnel of sorts that seemed to stretch on forever in the direction they were going.

The intercom clicked, and a voice came through.

"This is Core Security, your vehicle is currently in the middle of a gateway. Please clarify your credentials or you will be returned to the surface," it said, clear and familiar.

Luir spoke up.

"Luma Unto Infinite Reprieve," she said, "L.U.I.R. 0-1-1. Calling through 7-Shift-6-3."

Silence followed her words for several long breaths, but a response broke through eventually.

"Confirmed. Welcome home, Luir.

"What do whales eat?" That was the duress code, and she had nearly forgotten about it. Given the circumstances, she nearly laughed out loud.

"Jonahs."

"We detected a parasite on the vessel, but it has been purged. This ship will be transferred to hangar 6-2-B. Gates opening in five."

Five seconds later and the darkness at the end of the tunnel split into light, revealing an enclosed room that was their hangar. It was good to be home.