“Have you found anything?” Hong asked, breaking the silence which hung over them like an imaginary veil.

“No.” Violet replied, “Not yet anyway.”

“We should've gotten out of this place by now.” How eyed the ruin for an exit as they went further. Hong eyed the structure of the walls, the igneous rocks that had its own luster and density. Some of the stonework had a similar appearance to komatiite, granite, feldspar, dacite and scoria.

The Morean noticed that with each passing minute inside the underground ruin, the more she ruminated about the ancient labyrinth back in Lavanda. As an orphaned child raised at a monastery tasked with obligations, she had to find a place to meditate, or at least sneak off under the guise of meditating.

Violet used to sneak into the labyrinth to train, the insects that crawled up the walls, fissures and stalactites were suitable moving targets for Violet to practice on. The hidden traps from the labyrinth served for her to sharpen her reflexes and heighten her senses, despite that she risked herself of potentially losing an appendage.

Violet found it quite nostalgic, though Hong found it bothersome. Dozens of paths that led to nowhere, a couple of directions which lead to the starting point, and the same stonework from minutes ago silently mocking her.

“If I turn around to find the same carving on the wall from when we got here, I'm going to lose it.” Hong internally warned.

They found a section that was under renovations, the cobblestone walls met iron bars, from what could be seen through the bars there were doorways that had been sealed shut or locked as a clear reminder that the ruin was under construction and unaccesible to the public eye.

“Another dead end!?”, or so Hong thought until she saw a switch from the other end.

“Guess we'll have to find another route.” Violet turned to look.

“I don't care if any of these doors are locked, I'm getting out of this maze.” Hong loosened the wire from her arm and lauched it through the metal bars at 33MPH. The sharp tip of the wire hit the switch to raise the bars for them to pass. The doors were still locked, but the ones that were sealed opened.

“It was nice knowing you, but I have places to be. Zàijiàn!” Hong bid farewell, waving her metallic fingers without giving Violet a glance. As the Asian girl stepped to the threshold when a brood of snakes slithered out of the door Hong entered in. Through Violet's experience, it was preferable to avoid venomous vipers that resided in some of the nests.

Hong stepped back as the serpents slythered forward. The number of the snakes grew as they slithered out of a duct.

“Gāisǐ! (Damn!)”

“Forget the snakes, go to another door.” Violet suggested.

“No way, I'll kill them myself.” Hong insisted, “I need something to take my anger out on.”

“This isn't a game! You'll be outnumbered. Pick a door, I'll hit the switch and we'll both go our separate ways.” Violet mentioned as she pointed out the options with her katana before she sliced a snake in half for getting too close.

“Fine by me.” Hong threw the thread like confetti a few meters in through the snake infested door, ignited the following string, and the serpents combusted as the string blew up like a firecracker. The Morean rolled her amethyst eyes at Hong's antics.

“Have it your way. So long, Hong.” Violet bid farewell as she hit the switch on her way to the third door.

“Bye, Vi.” Hong blew up a second wave of snakes, then retreated to the second door like a mischievous child before the doors sealed shut.

The necromancer was worn out from crawling to nowhere for nearly to hours. His elongated body was coated in the sand, he laid there exhausted, restless, unable to move, alone in the middle of nowhere. The careless heat had made him parched as dry patched lips implored for water before passing out. From miles away there was a nomadic tribe passing by as they migrated, some of them riding on camel back, others in a caravan, though the majority walked on foot. Their leader, an elder swathed in layers of clothing, had supported himself with a staff indicated the path the tribe followed, four of the children were running circles trying to play tag, in this game they would have to catch at least one of the members and hide in the midst to prevent from getting caught. The one who gets tagged has to tag another player, or tag someone else to prevent elimination.

One of the children hid from the unlucky player, a boy with tawny skin and dark hair who walked around, trying to find his friends. He panted, saw that a 3/4 of the tribe had already crossed and he was shy away from falling behind. Irate, he kicked the sand and huffed before he ran to catch up with his family and he stumbled upon a calf and fell, faceplanting into the sand. He lifted his head as his face was caked in sand, flared his nostrils before he stood up to take his anger out on the suspecting rock and kicked it, except that it hadn't felt like he kicked a rock.

His thick bushy eyebrows raised in bewilderment. In his native tongue he asked, “what is that?” He tried to pull out whatever it was until he realized that it was a leg. A long hairy one at that.

The boy shouted, “I found a long leg!” The remaining quarter of the tribe didn't care.

One of the nomads hollered, “It's a mirage, Alibabbem!”

Alibabbem looked at the long hairy leg then thought to himself. If this man I found is dead. I'll become unclean and no one will play with me, unless that I tell them that I found a stranger begging for water, they'll help him up. And if they do find out that the man really is dead, they'll be the unclean ones instead.

And that's exactly what he did, he warned the nomads about the man he found in the sand to lure his friends out of hiding. As he ran to reach halfway to the tribe, the same nomad who hollered minutes ago repeated, “It's a mirage, Alibabbem!”

Despite this, the boy was persistant as he went further to warn them. One of his friends—a hazel-eyed boy with a wing shaped birthmark on his left cheek—jutted his head out of the line when he spotted Alibabbem catch up to him to tell the news.

The first course of action was to shimmy his way from Alibabbem's reach, but he didn't expect the bushy browed boy to sneak behind a mule that was next to him and tagged him.

The hazel-eyed boy groaned after getting caught. “Hashim, I need your help. I need you to convince your brother and his cronies to come pick up a man. He's dying of thirst.”

“Try convincing the elder to go rescue the foreigner first. I'll tell Dirsha to bring the water.” Hashim replied as the hazel-eyed went to find his older siblings.

Alibabbem paced his way out of the line and ran all the way to the lead in order to get to the elder while Hashim went to get his older brother, a strong man, and his sister Dirsha to inform them what he heard.

The nomad who discredited Alibabbem was named Achnabor, “Ignore him. He saw a mirage after he hit his head against the sand.”

“Stop antagonizing him, he's just a child.” His wife replied.

“Exactly, if that child gets to the elder and cajoles him to stop, we'll have no choice but to turn back and help pick up the sojourner.” Achnobor stated wryly.

“Look at it this way, if the sojourner lives, we have nothing to worry about. If not, then the boy will be forsaken along with the unclean ones.”

“As long as we're not one of them. It's already bad enough that we have to traverse to the desert for eight days to reach The Plains, let alone wait.” Achnobor groused bitterly.

Alibabbem already reached their leader and informed him about the stranger he found nearly submerged in the sand. The leader with his prune-like tilted his head by three inches counterclockwise then raised his left arm, signalling the tribe to halt. Then instructed his adolescent grandson to pick three strong men, one of them being Hashim's older brother, Jaffur. The elder, much like his descendants are navigators who guided his clan to safety which required instinct, foresight, and a keen sense of smell to seek out provisions or detect threats from long distances.

Since Nulekai's powers had been blocked and his spine severed, he was at the mercy of desert animals that roamed as an anthropod as large as a walrus scurried about as it followed the scent of Nulekai's natural body odour as the nomads came into view as the pale yarrow veil of the sand parted as the silhouettes of the four nomads approached.

The anthropod raised its stinger and lunged it at the nomad who came close. Juffar slashed the stinger as the anthropod let out a shriek while the other two went to check if Nulekai still lived. The elder's grandson pressed his thumb on Nulekai's neck.

“He lives.” He confirmed it in his native tongue while Juffar fought off the anthropod as the two nomads lifted Nulekai, one on each side and brought him for the tribe to see. The leader ordered the healers to take him in as they continued to their destination.

Ryo was at the hospital bed as he dreamt, snippets of his past mingled with his last encounter with Nulekai. Ryo let out a warcry in as he charged in with his battle armor with Spellblade in hand. A calloused boney hand stertched forward and pointed at Ryo's sword as the weapon disappeared in a puff of smoke, hands emerged from the ground as the corpses crawled out of the dirt surrounding him, dark fiery tendrils rose, separating him from Nulekai's victims. Miscellaneous hands stretched to reach him as the dark flaming tendrils became thinner until it turned as solid as a steel bars. The dead screamed for his help before the darkness above sucked them in like a wormhole. Ryo's armor vanished, he looked down was completely nude, ashamed, afraid, vulnerable. He touched the new scar on his chest, a small crater.

As shallow as his fate.

The cage he was trapped in elevated to the black sky, beyond the clouds there was a giant hand pulling the cage as if the bars were the strings, the next thing he knew, a projectile pierced through the giant hand and at the same time, Ryo's injury before he fell to the abyss and woke up in a cold sweat.

Ryo hyperventilated as he put a hand on his chest and felt the scar through the scrub. Cobalt blue eyes widened in trepidation while the heart monitor beeped rapidly as his heart raced.

He needed to escape.

Yin brought miso soup and cranberry juice from the cafeteria and went to visit Ryo to check on him as he entered, the Nylvalenorian elf had already disposed of the electronic pulse oximeter and got out of the hospital bed.

“Leaving so soon?” Yin asked as he held the tray while Ryo approached the door, only the aged Yamitzu is what stood between Ryo and the door.

“Out of the way, elder.” Ryo warned as he loomed over Yin as he shot a menacing glare while Yin was unphased by the large elf's intimidation tactic and raised the tray.

“You need to be replenished if you want to leave first.” Yin prompted.

“I don't have time for this.” Ryo pushed Yin and the tray slipped from Yin's hands, the elf yelled when he felt the scalding soup sear his midsection and the cranberry juice soak the scrub between his waist and pelvis.

The tray fell on the tiled floor with a loud clank, the dish got cracked and fell topsy turvy as the noodles of the soup slipped out while the glass shattered.

Ryo gritted his teeth, “You impudent oaf.”
Yin bent down to pick up the pieces while Ryo let out a snarl and got out of the hospital room, as he grumbled to himself while he headed on his way to the exit. The receptionist alerted the nurses as they dashed to catch him, a security camera recorded Ryo when he was leaving the hospital when the security guards stopped him.

Needless to say, the elf wasn't going down without a fight by the time the nurses arrived to sedate him when Ryo used one of his figthing techniques to dislocate a guard's shoulder and flipped him as the security guard fell flat before another security guard tackled Ryo from behind, two nurses helped the security guard keep Ryo Balthyra pinned to the ground while a third nurse brought the syringe and injected the sedative. The Nylvalenorian was brought back to the hospital room.

Ryan told Hae Ji exactly what he saw on his way out of the hospital.

“The elf boi really did that?! Didn't he get shot in the chest like you said?” Hae Ji asked, confuzzled.

“Yeah, it's not natural for someone to recover from a bullet wound so fast. One of the doctors mentioned that he should be under surveillance to prevent the injury from exacerbating.” Ryan mentioned, “That's why Yin is watching over him as we speak.”

“I know how that's like. Juuzou and I had to take turns to watch Joon for some time back when he used to be less ill. On one occassion, he slipped an herbal tea that would put us to sleep and he would sneak off to see Marie Lynn.”

“Who?”

“A friend of his, or girlfriend? Anyway, he sneaked off to say goodbye to her before she moved away to the United States of Magic.” Hae Ji said.

While Ryan and Hae Ji were interacting, Joon pretended to be asleep to overhear the interactions between the Ji Clan since they were the only ones speaking Korean in the infirmary.

“Why are we wasting time here?” One of them queried petulantly.

“We're here to prevent Joon from getting caught in the crossfire with the spellcasters out there.” Another replied as he looked out of the infirmary.

“But he's already asleep, look at 'im.”

“Don't be so sure, it wasn't the first time he feigned sleeping.” Jian reminded them, “He's the only guarantee we have to ensure that Hae Ji takes the Life Gem once the stadium shuts down.” Jian reminded them.

“Are you even sure that it'll work?”

“I don't like this anymore than you do, but it's the only chance we have to get out of this mess.” Jian acquiesced wryly.

“The skirmish is dying down.” Suki informed.

“Where is Lirien?” One of them inquired.

“Following Patricia's orders,”Jian stated, by the words to which was to hack the security system to track down where the powersource was hidden. Once there, she found a map of the underground ruin and downloaded it before sneaking out of Brandon's workspace and headed out, disguised as one of the security guards wearing a face mask and sunglasses.

Astrid approached the duchess of D'or and introduced hreself, extending her arm. "I'm Astrid. Nice to meet you."

"Dirlu D'or, a pleasure to meet your acquaintance." The duchess reciprocated the gesture to shake her hand. "Congratulations on winning the match, by the way. Even though fighting tournaments aren't of my preference I actually enjoyed watching the match."

"Thanks."

Octavia received a notification from the organization, authorizing the search warrant when Ash introduced herself to the Duchess of D'or.

“We got the green light to search the hotspot.” Octavia infirmed as she scrolled through the document on her smartphone.

“About damn time!” Tr spoke haughtily, earning a glare from one of the guards, “let's get this over with.”

Tr mouthed at the guard,“Watcha lookin' at?” Ash had to step in to prevent Tr from picking up a fight with the same guard that was eyeing him earlier.

The corners if Astrid's lips curved into a smile as she looked at Alexander while him and Logan were talking.

“C'mon, Al. You're not gonna get sliced by your girlfriend just by being honest.” Logan insisted.

“I know. Congrats on finding a fine lady like her, but if you ask me, Astrid is the prettiest girl.” Alexander replied, Astrid blushed, and Logan gave a dismussive hand wave.

“Whatever.” Logan then glanced at the dashing duchess. “Thanks again for the help, miss D'or.”

“Oh please, you can call me Dirlu.” She replied then leaned to whisper in his ear, “By the way, I know a place where they give a great massage at a good discount.”

“You don't say?” Logan laid a hand on his lower back, “My coxis would appreciate it.”

Octavia raised her eyebrows, either her steampunk glasses were blurry because she was seeing something that wasn't there or she  misinterpreted the exchange between their team leader and the duchess for flirting. TR silently gagged from a far as he also saw the not so subtle flirtation.

“We have to get a move on. Let's go!” Ash chirruped before Logan and Dirlu waved each other goodbye as the team exited the law firm.

Eimy pedalled the sidecar she rented in order to deliver the jar to Iixr, Mewmi was inside the basket guarding a massive jar full of Seep's sweat, the blue gelatinous liquid swished and swayed inside the jar while Seep sat on the seat of the sidecar while his blue form jiggled, letting his tongue hang out like a dog.

Mewmi prodded her head out of the basket, propping her paw on the lid while the wind caressed her golden fur as Eimy drove.