The Celestial Way

Chapter 24.2 - The Way Crumbles

Airo was dimly aware of somebody hauling him. The pain from his wound had receded, yet so had done the strength in his body. He could barely move, his limbs slack like sacks of rope. He willed his eyes to stay open, gazing at the high golden ceilings of Ilsorin as his captors carried him. Up there was a constellation of machinery and art: holographic projectors embedded in crystal-inlaid mosaics, energy emitters set next to hydroponically-fed hanging greenery, the glowing surfaces of planets and stars carved in bas-reliefs with grooved orbits. This parade of sights from a new perspective helped Airo to stay awake, and gave him some a vague notion to where they were taking him.

He knew he was being taken to the lower levels when the ceiling vistas disappeared, replaced by utilitarian designs and the looming profiles of large-scale nanofabricators, aethertech megafluxers, and other industrial-grade hardware. His captors took him still further down, into Ilsorin's depths, where Mentoria had made her private sanctum.

Heavy doors opened with a booming thud and the illumination changed yet again, becoming a riot of competing light sources. Worked stone and inlaid crystal made way to simple composite tiles. Decoration faded away; servers, power stations, and yet more fabricators took up free space. Brightly marked areas were free of any objects, demarcating high-energy weaver fields. Storage tanks, cisterns, and distilleries bubbled quietly, unseen fluids coursing through their pipes.

At last, Airo was placed down beneath the circular profile of a stasis-field projector. The projector's phasor transducers lit up and a golden haze enveloped Airo, immobilizing him completely. To his surprise, the field floated him into upright position and he finally was able to take stock of his surroundings.

He had come down here only a couple of times, yet it was enough to recognize this was indeed the laboratory where Mentoria worked. The whole place was a single enormous space the size of a geodesic dome, similar in shape, with equipment arranged into distinct sections. At the center of the dome was the tall cylindrical frame of an Æther forge, surrounded by HHI workstations, matter-to-energy modulation transformers, and variform magnetic-pressure injection nozzles.

And standing beside the Æther forge was Mentoria.

The exotic aethereal paid Airo no heed, her toxic-green eyes focused on a cluster of security drones. Airo couldn't move, though he saw what had gotten Mentoria's attention: a couple of drones were carrying Veralla's unconscious form, her wings and tail splayed helplessly.

"Veralla!" Airo tried to shout, yet the stasis-field denied him freedom to move his jaw, and he only made a high-pitched moan. The effort nearly made him black out; the wound in his chest wrenched, the sensation not quite a pain – but overwhelming nonetheless.

The drones placed Veralla at the Æther forge. Mentoria watched the proceedings carefully, her expression one of predatory anticipation. There was a commotion and the exotic aethereal turned. Two more security drones came into view, their slab-like shapes flanking a hazy, liquid-looking globe swirling with a multitude of colors. Someone was inside the globe, their body warped by the surreal refraction. A face, its features twisted, emerged near the globe's surface – and Airo recognized Magus Dei.

"Mentoria! What is the meaning of this!" the old Radiant Knight demanded, his voice heavily distorted.

"I told you, dear Magus, I have no intention to die here," Mentoria replied with a cold smile. "It was about time I made my own move. I do not have patience to gather so much resources in one place a second time."

"Your move?" Magus repeated. "You have enough means to escape Terra Para! Why do you arrest us?" His warped face turned. "Why have you taken Veralla?"

"Power, dear Magus," Mentoria replied. Her voice had a maniacal edge. "The power to Ascend."