Night had long since fallen over Lurline. The only thing illuminating the streets was the moonlight of the two moons and Rune lamps. The imperial castle loomed over the whole city. In its shadow was the research facility, encased in high stone walls and decorative iron spikes as effective as they were aesthetically pleasing. Just inside was an expansive landscape filled with lush flowering trees and bushes. Eventually the greenery fell away to an extensive open space of grass and stone pathways patrolled by pairs of Imperial Knights. The pathways all led to and around a massive complex of stone buildings reinforced by metal beams and sporting metallic roofing, which was rare to find in the current age, let alone in the Empire. The buildings were taller than most and in the center of the complex was a wide tower that looked as though it was made entirely of metal.
Having crept their way in on the side of the well fortified grounds of the research facility, Erik along with Aliya and Kindle were hiding among bushes while Terbius and Breyze were behind some trees. The mystery woman that was accompanying them was perched in a tree, surveying the area from up high. Everyone watched carefully as the patrols were passing.
“They doubled up but the guard is still pretty light back here,” Erik whispered, rather pleased nothing really changed in this corner of the facility even though he’d just been there. “Lucky us!”
“Did you leave a different way?” Aliya was stone faced as she glanced at him with an air of suspicion in the back of her mind. Her voice was harsh and silent. “I find it hard to believe things would be the same as when you went in.”
“Of course darling!” Erik wrapped his arm around her, laying on his roguish charm. “I left through the front gate after the alarm triggered when I removed the Rainbow Rune!”
“It’s called an Aurora Rune,” Aliya glared at him with an expression that sent a chill down his spine. “Now if you value your arm, I suggest you remove it!”
“Okay! Okay!” Erik leaned back holding both his hands up. He glanced over at Kindle who was crouched down on his other side, “Is she always like this?”
“Not really,” Kindle looked over at Aliya with concern. Aliya was too focused on watching the guards to notice. “I’ve seen this side of her a couple times, but you really seem to bring it out of her…”
“Coast is clear!” Terbius called out. They always were good at sensing Earth Mana in other beings relatively close by if they focused on it. In a facility run by humans it was no problem to track them.
“Let’s go!” Aliya quickly stood up and started towards the building.
“Follow me!” Erik jumped up and quickly skipped past her. The others followed as closely as they could. He pulled out a small dark metallic strip with an extremely small WInd Rune on the end and waved it over the handle of the metal door. A small magic glyph appeared from the Rune that matched the one on the door. The door slid open on its own. He happily spun the key around his finger from the string it was hanging from. “I swiped a master key to this place last time so this should be even more of a breeze!”
“What?” Breyze quickly realized it wasn’t her name that was spoken once she finished processing what he said. “Oh…” She shook her head. Pree quietly snickered from atop her head.
“Ladies first!” He smirked at Aliya who couldn’t care less.
The mystery woman with them entered the building before anyone else. Clearly she was not there to mess around as she started surveying the area, leaning against a corner to a hallway ahead. Aliya walked past Erik without even looking at him. Breyze skimmed through the notebook in hand. Kindle looked around as she entered with Terbius in tow behind.
“There is a way to access the weapon on the other side of this building.” Erik stepped away from the door, it closed on its own just as it had opened.
“Kinda expected more knights…” Ter said looking down the empty hall. The walls inside were entirely metal panels and support beams arched in the high ceiling as mana lanterns hung from the beams above them. The floors were a pale tiled stone with a long honey colored rug lined the center. There were many doors that looked just like the one they entered through dotting the corridor.
“I mean you just broke in here…” Bius pointed to Erik, summing up their confusion.
“They didn’t have any knights patrolling inside before,” Erik shrugged without a care as he continued down the hall. “Would they really expect someone to break in here twice the same night?” He laughed, “They probably are too busy looking for me. I bet they are all running around town clueless!”
“Or it’s a trap…” Aliya voiced quietly, only Kindle heard her because she was right next to her.
“Hey, you doing okay?” Kindle was starting to get unsettled by how cold Aliya was acting. She didn’t know her all that well yet but she was so used to the cheerful and warm Aliya. “You aren’t acting like you…”
“The stakes are too high, I can’t pretend to be who I am in this situation,” Aliya kept her eyes focused on Erik’s back and scanned for movement in the hall.
“Let’s keep the chit chat to a minimum in case someone is around,” The woman clad in black hissed.
“There’s someone around the corner,” Terbius both said quietly but loud enough for everyone with them to hear as they started approaching a side hall. It was hard to sense the movement of Mana inside for some reason but they still caught it.
Erik put his hand out and everyone had stopped moving. He leaned against the wall and peered around the corner of the side hall and saw a researcher. A skinny blonde man wearing glasses and a lab coat was flipping through notes as he walked down the hall towards them.
“Just a researcher…” Erik turned back to the group. The woman with them tried to dash past him and he grabbed her arm to stop her. They locked eyes, she gave him a look that could kill while all he did was smile and shake his head.
“Let’s hide in here for now!” Kindle pointed at the door urgently. Erik quickly moved over there, not letting go of the woman accompanying them. He swiped the key to open the door and tossed the woman in and waved everyone in. The door slid shut behind them.
“Why did you stop me?” The woman sprung at Erik before he could move away from the door, holding a blade to his throat.
“Easy now! You’re Raven, correct?” Erik’s overconfidence didn’t falter in the slightest. “Your silhouette is all over the wanted posters just like my handsome face. We are here to destroy the weapon. It'll be hard if they find a researcher dead and alert the whole facility again.”
“My mission is different from yours,” Raven hissed.
“He’s correct,” Aliya hated that she was agreeing with him. “Taking anyone out now will bring unnecessary attention to us. Besides, that researcher is probably just following orders.”
Raven retracted her blade into her gauntlet but didn’t say anything more. She was planning on parting ways as soon as they exited the room so she couldn’t be interrupted again.
Raven and Terbius guarded the door as Erik watched the other three girls investigating the room. The room was at least three stories tall and filled to the brim with machinery. A cat walk surrounded the three empty vats backed against the far wall. Pipes and tubes fed from both the bottom and top of the vats. Into a console in front of them and into the walls going somewhere else in the facility. Countertops lined the walls between the door and the machinery, littered with research notes and racks of some chemical liquid and various tools. It was a bit darker than the hall was, there were only a couple Rune lamps in the room and the rest of the lighting came from the pale illumination inside the vats.
“What is all this equipment?” Kindle looked up at the vats as she approached them. “These machines seem so complex.”
“Looks like there's plenty of notes around about it,” Pree commented as Breyze picked up a sheet and started reading it.
“I noticed a lot of this stuff seemed pretty high tech,” Erik crossed his arms behind his head as he glanced it all over. “Nothing like this in any other country, even in the Picanni Republic.”
“Seems they are recreating the technology of The Lost Continent like I thought. I never thought it would be so advanced…” Aliya placed a hand on the smooth glass of the vats. She was both fascinated and horrified because she knew just how dangerous that technology could be.
“What's the Mystic Reports?” Breyze tilted her head in confusion as she read over the research notes.
“Mystic? That sounds familiar…” Aliya placed a hand on her chin and closed her eyes trying to recall why that name sounded so familiar but it was like there was a fog in her mind the harder she tried to remember.
“Isn't that the name of The First Order’s Arch-Druid that went crazy?” Erik mentioned rather casually. “Jack Mystic, right?”
The moment Erik mentioned his name the fog lifted if for just a moment, not enough for a memory but enough for a feeling. Erik had glanced back at Aliya and saw a brief moment of pure terror on her face that was just painful to see. She snapped out of it and ran over, snatching up the paper from Breyze.
“The translated Mystic Reports of the Devitalize Theory is proving true. With slight alterations we have successfully-,” Aliya stopped reading aloud for a moment. All the fear inside her turned to rage and the air grew cold. Her hands trembled as she gripped the paper tighter.
“Is it just me or is it colder?” Erik looked around the room as the chill spread.
“Aliya?” Kindle’s concern grew rapidly seeing the ground at Aliya’s feet starting to freeze.
“These machines…” Her voice was shaken as tears froze on her face. “They turn Spirits into Runes!” The whole room froze over. The glass on the vats started to crack as did the pipes. Large ice crystals started forming on the machines filling in the gaps and soon the whole mechanical side of the room became encased in a solid wall of ice while the rest of the room was coated in a thin sheet of ice.
“Whoa! Chill out now!” Erik panicked a little not wanting to be frozen along with everything.
“It's humans like this that make me understand The Earth Legion's motives,” Aliya hissed under her breath as she shattered the frozen paper in her hands.
“Are you going to switch sides?” Breyze asked overly enthusiastic about the dramatic story it would make.
“No,” Aliya paused and took a deep breath calming down ever so slightly. “Not all humans deserve to be killed for the atrocities of a few.”
“Good, I'd rather not have to kick your ass trying to stop this war,” Kindle crossed her arms and held a slight smirk.
“Well while you guys plan on stopping this war, I'm going to finish this job!” Erik turned towards the door. Raven looked eager for him to open the door and let them out as well.
“Wait!” Aliya raised her voice. She wasn’t about to let him out of her sight, at least not until she had her brother’s gun back and they were out of the facility.
“What?” He stopped and turned on a dime. He shrugged and gave her a playful smile. “Can't stand the thought of going on without me?”
“In your dreams!” Aliya narrowed her eyes at him with a bitter tone in her voice. “Right now, all I care about is destroying this place. Especially that weapon. I don’t trust you as far as I could throw you and I bet that’s pretty far so you aren’t leaving my sight.”
“After you then!” Erik didn’t let her rattle him. He stepped aside and gestured to the door, handing her the key as she passed.
“Terbius is the coast clear?” Kindle rolled her eyes at the drama unfolding.
“They are in the room next to us,” Ter reported as his brother pointed to the left wall.
Aliya swiped the key and the door opened. As soon as everyone was out in the hall, Raven snatched the key from Aliya and pointed her blade at them as she walked backwards down the hall.
“What are you doing?” Aliya coldly glared at her.
“I’m here to make sure this research never sees the light of day,” Raven stated. “I need this more than you.”
“Alright,” Aliya narrowed her eyes. She knew there was no stopping Raven, she didn’t want to if it meant that Spirits would be safe from the misguided imperial decisions. Raven disappeared down the hall and around a corner.
“Well hiding won’t be easy,” Erik pouted. He looked at Aliya, bitter she just let it happen. “Did you really have to let her go? She’s probably going to kill the researchers regardless of what they know.”
“I don’t like it either but this research is dangerous not just for Spirits but humans as well,” Aliya stated. “If she won’t let it see the light of day then leave her be. There’s no time to debate ethics when the annihilation of all life on Mysteria is at risk.”
“What are you talking about?” Kindle looked at her with confusion.
“Devitalization is the process to extract Mana,” Aliya started down the hallway again. “If they use it to try to tap into the Leylines hoping for everlasting power, Mysteria will die. Now let’s go! We don’t have time to waste!”
Everyone proceeded cautiously through the halls. It was dead silent aside from their footsteps. Aliya couldn’t help but find it rather suspicious. Nothing about this mission was sitting right with her since it started. Even if it was night, she thought it strange there was hardly a soul inside such a large facility. She thought there would be some knights even so she expected to be a handful more researchers wandering the facility that was just broken into. It was just too easy to be walking down the halls in the open.
“As a top secret facility with dangerous technology the security is rather light,” Aliya stopped walking and glared at Erik harshly. She just couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Do we have to go over this again?” Erik groaned as he turned around to face her. He was starting to find her trepidation a bit annoying since now it was holding them back.
“It seems suspicious!” Aliya hissed through her teeth.
“She’s not the only one thinking that,” Kindle crossed her arms.
“Come on! We’re so close! We can’t stop now!” Erik gestured to the door at the end of the hall. Even if it was a trap, he couldn’t fathom why she was so hung up on it when their lives were on the line, more so than his, should the weapon become active. “If we don’t destroy it, they’ll move it somewhere else.”
“Why do you think I’m still here?” Aliya crossed her arms.
“Well it’s right through those doors,” Erik huffed and pointed at the double doors at the end of the hall. “If it’s a trap, there will be nothing but knights in there.”
“After you then!” Aliya hissed bitterly.
“Ladies first!” Despite Erik’s sly smirk his voice held the air of annoyance he was feeling.
“How about both of you go at the same time?!” Kindle rolled her eyes and shoved them both towards the door.