Phoenix was both fascinated and annoyed by the desote ndscape interspersed with va flows. The heat was getting worse, and she found herself swapping out clothing for something that wouldn’t make her pass out from the extreme temperature.

  Even pulling out her Drifter’s Umbrel seemed to have minimal effect on the Sapphire Caste heat permeating the area. Luckily, none of her clothing actually offered much protection from damage, so she wasn’t putting herself at much of a disadvantage. Though, now that she thought about that, it probably was more of an unfortunate thing that she hadn’t gotten some proper armor to protect her from damage, considering how often she ended up getting stabbed by bdes or cws.

  Rayna gave her a teasing smile as she showed off more glowing skin than she ever had before on the snowy tundra, “That’s what I was talking about! Take advantage of Ta’s benefit and look good while kicking arse.”

  Phoenix rolled her eyes at the desert-born voxen as she struggled in an attempt to spin her braid around her head and into a makeshift bun to get the heavy locks off the back of her sweaty neck.

  She and Dazien were the worst off of the group, and they both periodically took more yers off to store in their respective dimensional storage abilities with a thought.

  She even shot him a slightly envious gre as his silvery top vanished, leaving him completely bare-chested. That brief fre of jealousy vanished when she realized that she would likely get many more stares than he currently was if she followed his example.

  Their other party members were all making a point not to look at the two Adventurers practically stripping next to them. However, a quick gnce around showed that they weren’t the only ones as several runeforged were also lessening their loads where possible.

  When her eyes nded on Dazien’s muscled back, however, she was a bit surprised by the sight of a dazzling golden stripe standing out against his warm brown skin. It was about two inches wide and ran down his spine from his scalp to disappear beyond the waist of his pants. As she peered closer, the stripe didn’t look like paint or a tattoo, and as it moved with him, she asked, “Are those scales?”

  Dazien gnced back to see what she was referring to before giving a huff, “Ah. Yeah, courtesy of Rex. They appear when he’s merged with me.”

  “That’s soooo much better than glowing!” she compined, looking down at her own bare arms.

  He chuckled, “At least the glowing does something actively useful. The scales just let me get hit a bit harder before I break.”

  “That’s useful,” she pointed out, then teased, “Making you tougher means more meat shield for me.”

  Paul slowly made his way back to their party as they walked with the few Crystal Caste groups that had been chosen to move forward due to various factors –like Phoenix’s portal, which made their lower Castes worth the risk.

  Her mentor raised an eyebrow at her appearance, and when she fanned her face in response, she felt a sudden relief as the Emerald Caste aura washed over them in a sudden wave as he said, “Sorry, I was focused on other things and didn’t think about the heat factor for the lower Castes.”

  “Understandable. Thanks for the help. That is so much better now,” she responded as her body quickly adjusted to the increased Fire resistance.

  “When we get there, keep with the other Crystals,” Paul said with a tilt of his head towards the others as he redirected the conversation back to the task before them, “We don’t know what the enemy might be capable of, and staying together will give you the advantage of numbers should another Sapphire reach you.”

  They nodded, and he continued, “Phoenix, you’ll be responsible for portaling people back to the camp by the Rift entrance. Any wounded or prisoners with their escorts are your priority. Once all the threats are taken care of, then the goal is to get everyone else out. I’ve already spoken with Agatha about this; once we’ve cleared out the enemy forces, we can call in the specialists to figure out how they might have compromised this pseudo-reality.”

  “That reminds me,” Phoenix spoke up, “Did you learn anything from the st Reality Rift we visited together? We saw them messing with some kind of sphere, right?”

  “I didn’t recognize what it was and didn’t exactly have time to study it with a half-dead teenager on my hands,” Paul said with a pointed look.

  “Hey, you told me to stand at the bottom of the dune, and I stood at the bottom of the dune. It’s not my fault you exploded them so hard that a monster nded on me,” she retorted, which caused him to shake his head with a smirk.

  “You’re right, how forgetful of me,” he sarcastically replied, “This time, I’ll be sure just to ask the monsters nicely if they can leave the Rift and let me know how to deactivate that sickly-looking seed they left behind.”

  “Seed?” she asked, distracted from the pyful banter by the new piece of information, “Like a Monster Seed? That thing was way too big for that.”

  Paul shrugged, “It’s what it looked like, but it definitely wasn’t a monster one.”

  “Did it look like that?” Dazien interjected as he pointed slightly off to the right of where they were heading.

  The party all turned to look, and Phoenix could barely make out the object, “Are you talking about that spec in the distance? I can’t make that out at all from here.”

  “Didn’t you get a Crystal Eye?” Uriel asked tangentially.

  Phoenix looked at him for a moment, trying to remember what he was talking about. She checked her collection mentally before it clicked, “You mean that item I got from defeating all those Fywings during our watch on the wall?”

  “Yeah, I thought you would have used it by now to boost your sight or try crafting it. Those are often used for that purpose.”

  “Huh,” she replied thoughtfully, “Maybe I could try–”

  “Task at hand first, Phoenix,” her mentor interrupted, “Let’s go check it out. I’ll let Officer Trayvious know to join us.”

  As the party moved to do as ordered, Paul went to inform the AOA Officer, who had been chosen to act as the assistant commander in pce of his sister, the Director. Phoenix recognized Aln Trayvious as the assessor during her trials, but she hadn’t realized the runeforged was reted to the Director; though, she should have made the name connection sooner.

  The entire group moved with their new orders toward the new point of interest, and as they arrived, Phoenix agreed with Paul’s assessment of it looking like a sickly seed. It was about the size of a small car and sat on the ground, seeming to bleed a sticky bck goo into the surrounding nd.

  Aside from the massive organism that was glowing an eerie yellow-green, the rocky area had rge vines weaving around the area that seemed to be pulsating with energy. She had to stand on her tiptoes to confirm that they were woven into a ritual diagram.

  Her curiosity got the best of her, and she moved forward to peek at the space of the ground between the vines, ignoring Dazien’s hushed protest of, “Phoenix, get back here.”

  What she found was roughly what she had expected: runes carved into the ste rock as though a ser cutter had drawn them. She practically crawled over the vines to observe the sibling runes, trying to decipher their goals and workings.

  These were much more advanced than she had ever worked with, though. The only thing that came close to this level of complexity was the ritual circle that had almost caged her soul and turned her into a mindless monster.

  After a solid five minutes of climbing over everything, she finally looked up to talk to her mentor, only to freeze at the sight of the expedition all staring at her.

  Paul gave her an amused smirk as he asked, “Any ideas, Protégé?”

  Phoenix flushed at the use of the title in front of everyone, as though he was showing off their retionship. She was still having trouble reconciling with the idea that anyone would actually want other people to know that she was involved with them in some way, whether it was as a student, a party member, or even a friend.

  “I think they’re enchantment reys,” she answered quietly, knowing that the Emerald Caster’s overpowered hearing would be able to pick up her words.

  Paul was beside her a breath ter, saying, “Show me.”

  So she did, pointing out some of the same concepts she had been tinkering with ages ago to expand the use of their monster alerting system across the tundra. She also expined some of the pieces she didn’t quite understand.

  As Officer Trayvious joined them, Paul said, “It’s absorbing and Corrupting the ambient magic.” He touched some of the sickly dark goop that was dripping sporadically off the vines as he sniffed at it and added, “I bet once it’s absorbed enough, it’ll be primed to be triggered from wherever the control node is and explode.”

  “A chain reaction of Corrupted mana ripping through a drained pseudo reality and causing it to colpse upon itself?” Aln asked in crification, and both she and Paul nodded together. All of them grimaced at the mental image, and then the Officer asked, “Can we destroy this one and disrupt their pns?”

  She shared a gnce with Paul before he gestured for her to speak, and she advised, “I wouldn’t want to risk triggering the chain reaction early. I’m not a specialist, which is what we would need in order to assess the risks properly. I can’t tell if there are any safety measures in pce to punish anyone who might attempt exactly what we want to do.”

  Paul smiled at her, and she felt that weird sense of etion again at his approval as he agreed, “That would be my recommendation as well, Officer Trayvious.”

  Aln nodded and waved them back toward the rest of the expedition, “Then let’s continue with the original pn and buy us more time to get those specialists here.”

  As she moved to go, giving a final gnce at the half-living enchantment, she suddenly had a confusing thought and asked them, “This has been here for a while. How did they have enough time and access to pce these reys all across this valley of death without anyone noticing?”

  The Officer grimaced, “House Ruwena has been managing the Reality Rift for generations. It has only recently come to our attention that not enough oversight or questions were being directed towards said management.”

  Phoenix pinched the bridge of her nose to hold back her irritation at the blind trust an entire city had pced in its aristocracy. This was exactly the ck of those checks and bances she had mentioned before.

  Paul patted her shoulder as he said, “Not everyone was sitting idly by. One of my old friends, Lord Teras, was already trying to rectify the issue, but he needed a little…”

  “Emerald power backing him?” she wryly asked as he trailed off.

  “Exactly. Power and politics,” he practically spit, and Phoenix thought she would join him wholeheartedly in that stance. She would have to make sure that not having to deal with politics was written down somewhere in whatever papers she would need to sign to join his family.

  Phoenix soon rejoined her party as the entire group of Adventurers began to move out again, making their way towards their original destination of ruins in the distance. The prisoners they had managed to capture had directed them towards it in exchange for their lives, but they were still wary of potential traps.

  It was when she finally id eyes on a tunnel at the base of one of the sheer mountains that Phoenix finally saw their goal. It also seemed like a few dozen people remained at its entrance to guard whatever y within. She spread her aura and sensed a few Sapphires mixed in with mostly Crystals. With those new numbers, she briefly worried her portal cooldown wouldn’t be able to keep up with the amount.

  It turned out that she wouldn’t have to concern herself too much with needing to portal dozens of Casters back to the base, however. When the forces collided, not many were taken prisoner as the enemy fought back with their lives. Even with an Emerald Caster at their doorstep, it seemed many of the zealots were more than willing to die for their deity.

  The non-zealot nobles, on the other hand, seemed more concerned about keeping their lives. After the first few Sapphire Casters were put down by the Padin of the Avenger, they were not as enthusiastic about gaining retribution for their sins. Many chose to take their chances with the Justice System rather than Emerald Caste vengeance and quickly surrendered.

  The entrance into the mountain was much rger than Phoenix had initially thought, now that she could see it up close. It appeared to be a decrepit ruin that hadn’t actually been used for centuries. She thought it made the perfect evil ir for a group of fallen clergy bent on destroying the world while being hunted down and wondered how nobody had thought to investigate sooner.

  Phoenix was already helping to portal back a few people who actually had managed to get captured over becoming another red-shirt to litter the background with their blood. She frowned at the waste of lives despite them belonging to the enemy.

  After a few minutes, she and the rest of King’s Dream were beginning to wonder if her portal was the only thing going to see any usage during this stage of the expedition, but the appearance of a rge number of reinforcements and the enemy’s surprise weapon caused a sudden ceasefire.

  An Emerald Caster appeared on an empty balcony in the mountainside. It had initially seemed unused, but Phoenix now noticed runes etched around its opening that seemed to indicate some kind of shielding effect. The newcomer looked to be an angel, with long white hair and matching feathered wings that seemed longer than she was tall. However, Phoenix’s aura senses told her the Emerald Caster was actually human, like Paul.

  The enemy powerhouse wore flowing robes that were pristine white with gold trimming, and Phoenix couldn’t help but be reminded of Paul’s old regalia. Flying down with physics-defying wings, the angelic-looking woman sent a suffocating aura across the battlefield. Phoenix could sense her resistance to Fire lower slightly while Light and Radiance got ground into nothing.

  Then the obvious Renseres leader spoke loud enough for all to hear with a mixture of amusement and disdain, “It seems like the impure rabble has arrived, led by none other than our own disgraced Padin.”

  At the lower entrance, Phoenix could make out another woman leading the new wave of mostly Sapphire Caste enemies, who her aura picked up only once they exited the boundary of the ruins. That group’s leader bore a strong resembnce to Murinah Ruwena, and Phoenix assumed that she was the te noble’s mother and the head of the traitorous noble House.

  Paul’s face remained impassive, but everyone could feel the sense of vengeful wrath filling his aura and bearing down on the priestess’s own. The tan woman’s expression became even more disgusted by the dispy, “I see you’ve joined the Avenger’s minions. A bunch of viginte criminals pying at being heroes. I guess Hero’s clergy wouldn’t accept someone as deplorable as you. Just look at how far you’ve fallen, Waynd.”

  “Not as far as you have and will, Nietra,” he replied, appearing completely unfazed. Without any fanfare, he triggered an ability and shot through the air, impacting with the priestess and sending a wave of force from the csh echoing throughout the volcanic mountain range behind the enemy line.

  The concussive bst acted like a starting pistol. The Adventurers reacted quickly, ignoring the Emerald Caste battle in the air and moving toward the ruins to handle the remaining enemy forces.

  New Quest: Pure Zealotry

  Foil the pns of the Purifier’s zealots.

  Objective: Help defeat the Renseres within Tulisuda.

  Reward: Rare Crystal Caste trinket.