Lester Yong & Rosa Fontelera-Yong

CoESC Book 9-14.1: Intrusion

It took two days, but neither Saki nor the beastkin found any tunnels nearby that could lead to Synkrasia. Yuriko and the others then decided that they would try to penetrate deeper into the city, but in the meantime, they relocated away from the first barracks building to a different one that was at least several hundred paces away from the Femorant circle.

“Their eyesight isn’t the best,” Saki said. “I noticed it, even when I’m out of the shadows.” Yuriko thought that Saki...

CoESC Book 9-13.3: Pest Control

“Red Femorants,” Sheamus said slowly. “A common foe found in the Chaos Sea’s untamed Fysallis. And the depths of a plane.”

“You didn’t say anything before,” Yuriko said sharply.

“What’s to say?” Sheamus shrugged. “They’re pests. They may look like human insect hybrids but they have less of a mind than a common swarmling.”

“So what are they doing?”

Sheamus shrugged, “I’ll have to see. But, are they seemingly going round and round in c...

CoESC Book 9-13.2: Pest Control

Not a dozen blocks away from the wall and the barracks, dozens of Femorants scurried down the roads and alleyways. The buildings were of varying height, but somehow, from what Yuriko could see, they progressively grew taller the closer they were to a pillar. It meant that looking from where she was, all she saw was a continually taller set of buildings that were somehow concealed from the original entrance tunnel to the cavern.

She and Saki were on a rooftop, and unlike the typical Impe...

CoESC Book 9-13.1: Pest Control

After gaping at the reflection of the setting sun, Yuriko’s perception aura alerted her to several disturbing things.

The tunnel they used to enter the chamber exited at roughly five paces above the cavern floor. There was a sloped pathway towards a low wall, but there was also a pit that provided a gap between the tunnel and the wall. She couldn't see the bottom, which meant it was definitely more than nine paces deep. The path was narrower than the tunnel, though it tapered so that ...

CoESC Book 9-12.3: Movement

A couple of days later, Yuriko and the others encountered their first anathema beast. From that first cavern, they had to travel back a couple more, since all of the branch tunnels had also collapsed under whatever it was that blocked off Synkrasia. They made a base camp on that cavern, which wasn’t as large as the one nearest the city but was respectably big anyway. It even had a little stream bisecting it, flowing from a crack in the wall and towards another crack. The outflow was in the ...

CoESC Book 9-12.2: Movement

The fighting had been hot and furious. Riley went through more than half of the Animus Gatherer Pack’s reserves in less than a minute, while Aidan’s plasma orbs had shrunk after colliding with dozens of Chaos dwellers.

The wounded were being carted away, mostly by the deckhands and crew. The shipboard marines had their hands full with pushing back against the Chaos dwellers. Fighting against Chaos dwellers within a plane’s Chaos Channel was vastly different from fighting them on t...

CoESC Book 9-12.1: Movement

There were two tunnels on either end of the underground chamber, and neither of them had any labels or possessed the orichalcum petals or electrum thorns. One of them headed north, while the other, southeast, and given the fact that Yuriko remembered Synkrasia to be near the centre of the plane, she decided that they were going to use the north tunnel. None of the others protested her decision or offered a better reason to go south, so north it was.

The darkness was oppressive, and it w...

CoESC Book 9-11.3: Diversions

“That wasn’t a dream, was it?” Yuriko murmured as she paced around the tower’s roof. The clouds weren’t dark today, and there was no feeling of imminent lightning strikes. Their battle hadn’t been that destructive, but she was sure she left some marks when she tempered her Anima and body with lightning. Since there were no signs left, it either didn’t happen as she remembered, or the tower repaired itself.

The first meant that she would have to revisit every memory of hers...

CoESC Book 9-11.2: Diversions

The most intolerable thing about being a ship’s marine was that, at certain points of the action, Riley could do nothing but watch. Anything he did would result in nothing of particular note or consequence. He didn’t have the strength of Animus to destroy a squid ship with a single plasma bolt. Anything less than that would only allow his target to pull back and recover, while one of the hundreds more would take its place.

No, the only thing he could do was sit and pray to the Ances...

CoESC Book 9-11.1: Diversions

‘Damien!’ Yuriko called out, but the old man hadn’t responded after nearly ten minutes of mental yelling. Fri’Avgi didn’t have anything to add either, saying that she didn’t know what the old man meant and that she was really only concerned with defeating and devouring things to further her recovery.

Left with little choice, but with her mind churning with thoughts, doubts, and fears, Yuriko tossed and turned inside her bedroll, stared fitfully up the tent’s ceiling, and t...

CoESC Book 9-10.3: The Depths

“A challenger! How rare.”

Yuriko blinked at the monkey’s words, barely registering that they weren’t spoken in Verdanian, or Wojan, before it…he jumped up from his seated pose, dropped his staff behind him, and launched a flying kick at her.

The monkey’s azure robe fluttered away from his legs, revealing in the process that the robe was the only bit of clothing he had. His foot was clenched into a fist, too, making her gawk for even longer. But as soon as the monkey ma...

CoESC Book 9-10.2: The Depths

Squinting, Yuriko tried to make out what was happening in the pandemonium. She could see wagons and beasts of burden on one side, then a line of men and women on the eastern side of the clearing at the end of the road. From what she could see, the obsidian tower had an opening on its southern face and a courtyard that was at least five times as wide as the road that led to it. The wagons and oxen were in the middle, surrounded by a gaggle of non-combatants. Even as she watched, a wagon and ox...

CoESC Book 9-10.1: The Depths

The Sullen Striker dipped below Equilibrium as more and more of the squid ships appeared out of the nearby Waypoints. The first few that pursued them had been easy enough to defeat, but Riley’s fatigue had built up over the next thirty-six hours of constantly using his weapon. Almost as soon as one squid ship was driven away, damaged, or sunk, another would take its place.

Riley even had the insane thought of them being the same ships, just returned to their ideal state and launched t...

CoESC Book 9-9.3: Troublesome Denizens

“An army? Whose?” Yuriko asked.

“It looks like a combined force from the Federation,” Saki answered. “The road stretches from north to south. I think it leads to that pillar and goes all the way to one of the cities.” She shrugged, “I’m not sure which one is to the east of the one we were near to…what was that name? Uan?”

“Uaran City,” Yuriko said. “East? Hmmm…was it Garamus City?”

“Probably. Does it matter?” Saki asked.

“I suppose n...

CoESC Book 9-9.2: Troublesome Denizens

Most of the elation Yuriko felt at fighting the strange, iron-furred wolves faded as soon as she saw the camp. The tension was palpable, with over three times more people on watch. They managed to push the forest back by a couple of dozen paces, had dug up a trench, and had the makings of a decent palisade.

As soon as the watchers saw her next to Rolland, their stiff expressions loosened up. There were even a few who cheered. The tinge of desperation immediately eased.

Just past t...

CoESC Book 9-9.1: Troublesome Denizens

Twin bolts of lightning, red and black, struck the ironhide wolf on either end. The red lightning struck the nose, while the black hit the rump, and a moment later, the wolf’s body spun around before it slammed into a tree trunk. The lightning tethers remained, and the direction reversed even faster, forcing the beast to rotate in midair. Then, a last reversal overcame whatever resistance its body had, and with a loud crack, its back broke.

Orrin released his tether, sweat pouring dow...

CoESC Book 9-8.3: Into the Valley

The wolf sprang for Gwendith’s throat, but she ducked and rolled underneath it. At the same time, the needle she created out of the stream water, slammed into its pelt. It shattered, failing to penetrate the metal fur, but that hadn’t been her goal in the first place. The area it hit, the right hind leg, near the heel, started to freeze. Well, the water spread on it and froze, not the fur or the leg itself, as far as she could tell.

“Watch out!” Asami screamed as her cousin popp...

CoESC Book 9-8.2: Into the Valley

The rest of the caravan was still a couple of days away, but the route to get to the ridge was pretty much secure, it was just how to get down into the valley that presented a minor challenge.

Yuriko sat on the edge, with her legs dangling over the void. The mists thickened despite the noonday sun, obscuring most of the valley in the process. It might have been luck that allowed her to get such a good view right when she crested the ridge, but perhaps the winds blew the mist to and fro ...

CoESC Book 9-8.1: Into the Valley

My. How luxurious.

‘Huh?’ Yuriko sent back, jolted out of her daze. She was neck-deep in the bathtub, the hot water steamed and obscured the rest of the room. It was already dark outside and the soft light from the light panels didn’t give much illumination. It was relaxing though. The panels had been scribed by Orrin, and Yuriko noted the neatness of his hand in the lines. It was finer than what she normally used, and while it didn’t reach the mastery of the runescript...

CoESC Book 9-7.3: Gamad

“Meeeeheeeeeh.”

A herd of mountain goats nibbles at the bristly shrubs along the cliffside. There were dozens of the brown-coated beasts, with dark twisty horns, and cloven hooves. The small plateau, ledge, really, was just broad enough for a dozen of them to gather. And as soon as Yuriko’s head appeared from under the ledge, the critters all shot off.

She gaped in surprise as the goats seemed to defy gravity as they clambered up the sheer cliff face, and they were dozens of...

CoESC Book 9-7.2: Gamad

As far as he could see, the man named Salter Blume was annoyingly plain. Lucian Ward, the recently returned hero of Garamus, wanted to slap the smaller man silly. There was just something off with Salter, specifically in the way Lucian’s eyes wanted to slide off the other man, or how his mind couldn’t quite remember if the other’s eyes were brown or black. Only the badge the man presented was clear. The seven silver dots arrayed around a mountain peak, and at the base, labelled Uaran. T...

CoESC Book 9-7.1: Gamad

As the Sullen Striker cut through the Chaos Sea, Riley glanced fitfully at the stern, then towards the port side where the other two assault cruisers sailed. He could barely make out the nearest one’s name, printed on the side of the bow.

“The Shattering Spear?” he muttered as he squinted his eyes.

Enhanced Sight or Sense would have given him a clearer view, but that technique only worked best within the planes. Using it in the Chaos Sea gave differing results. Ah, not that ...

CoESC Book 9-6.3: Tempering

“Leo is nearly eighteen,” Izna Weyr said. Braden and Orrin nodded along while Yuriko poked at her dinner. “That he awakened now…” Izna stared at her and pursed his lips. “Yours?”

“By accident,” Yuriko admitted. “You saw how he was shocked…but that may only be the final push.”

Most of the unawakened joined her in morning training, though they didn’t attend every day. They couldn’t cycle Recovery after all and needed two or three days of proper rest to pr...

CoESC Book 9-6.2: Tempering

“What did you decide?” Yuriko asked curiously.

Dominic Hurin coughed and said, “Er, not me. Us.” His lips twitched into a grin. “I guess we all prefer to be with you, Lady Yuriko.”

“Oh!” Yuriko exclaimed, taken aback and exhilarated.

Then, she felt worry return and gnawed at her mind. She wasn’t sure what she’d find on the way to Synkrasia, but then again, she couldn’t very well leave them here. This was hardly better than leaving them on the road betwe...

CoESC Book 9-6.1: Tempering

“Welcome back, Lady Yuriko,” Dominic Hurin bowed in greeting.

“Good to be back,” Yuriko replied. She glanced around the oasis and found little to have changed except for a few plots that had been ploughed and were being readied for planting. “They’ve started already?”

The muscular Adept looked to where she was staring and shrugged. “They have indeed. For the past few days, the Spirit Binders of the Land have readied it to grow fruit.”

“I see.” Yuriko sh...

CoESC Book 9-5.3: Revenant

The Knight of the Abyss stirred from his seat as he felt the broken shards of Anima return. Many still felt rage and resentment, both toward their previous lives, no matter how long it had been, and to their master who had given them glorious purpose in return for service. The Knight was ever thankful for the chance, even if he didn’t exactly remember what he had been angry and resentful for.

And now, with the broken shards returned, he needed to recast their chains. The master could ...

CoESC Book 9-5.2: Revenant

Heron’s collapsible spear opened with a snap. His Anima condensed into a thin film and spread over the spear and his resonating buckler. The small shield unfolded like a fan and created a circle over his wrist, a little more than ten inches across. His first Facet, the only one remaining in his Anima, and according to Yuriko, would be scrubbed away once he took the final step to the Knight level…Actualisation level, only needed that one anchor to function properly. The wind swirled around...

CoESC Book 9-5.1: Revenant

It was still early evening by the time Yuriko, Asami, and Desire returned to their inn. The Beaver’s Largesse, as the sign said. Yuriko didn’t care to remember and only saw the sign when they returned. It wasn’t that hard to distinguish though, even if most of the buildings in this part of the city looked practically identical. The Largesse was the only one painted a lurid red.

The ground floor was made out of red bricks. That, Yuriko thought, was naturally coloured that way. The ...

CoESC Book 9-4.3: Dangerous Calm

“This looks like a likely place,” Braden muttered.

Across the street was the entrance to a bustling marketplace, and even late in the afternoon, it was filled with shoppers and travellers. Beside him, Orrin shrugged, while Gwendith nodded in agreement. However, her eyes remained colder than ice.

Braden mentally shook his head. Gwendith Sharine was strange. He barely interacted with her before her abduction, and when she returned, the former snobby noble girl had been replaced ...

CoESC Book 9-4.2: Dangerous Calm

Unlike Haveena, Uaran didn’t have a wall. And unlike Kadrac, the city wasn’t one made of leather tents either. As far as Yuriko could see, Uaran was a city of large villas, much like Sorren’s Hollow within Synkrasia, except multiplied a hundred times over.

The city simply stretched out over leagues, with wide boulevards and straight avenues cutting across the city, yet the smaller streets curved and undulated with land. Trees covered many of the villas, at least in the central por...