Jayler had to admit that he was rather happy with the handiwork of his team. No matter how he looked at it, they had done a good job with cleaning up the castle. Much to his own surprise, they worked quickly, and the primary areas had already been cleared away after just a few hours. Of course, they still had to worry about the individual rooms where the members of different Hanilia factions would be staying, and Gemini seemed pretty insistent on assigning different regions for the various factions. It was progress regardless though, and Jayler was more than willing to accept that. Cleaning the area had been a gargantuan task, and yet, he was certainly starting to feel as if they could round it off and finish in a timely manner.
The other Clan Leaders were exhausted by the time they called for a lunch break. Gemini refused to admit it, but Jayler could still see the way that her body sagged with relief when it was time to eat. All six of them gathered in the main area and sat in a circle on the floor to eat a few sandwiches that Tuila had created for them. There were a few other members of the Draconic Superiors scattered around the castle who had either finished lunch already or wanted to keep going, so it was only the Clan Leaders in the entrance hall. Jayler was fine with such, as it gave him a time to talk to his friends without anyone else around. It wasn't as if Jayler didn't like being around the Draconic Superiors; he simply enjoyed all the time he got around the Clan Leaders.
"So... I'd say that we're making some pretty good progress on the castle," Lex declared, starting off their unofficial meeting with her regular seamless charm as she took a bite of her sandwich. "I'm glad that we've already gotten through the main areas. The rooms are going to be the hard part, but this is still progress."
"I'm glad that we've been able to come so far as well," Ocean agreed with a small nod before turning to look at Gemini. "Do you think that you'll have the plan figured out for the areas where the specific Hanilia factions will be staying in soon?"
Gemini nodded. "Yeah. I've gotten a pretty good feel of the layout for the castle, so it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out who is staying where. There are a few larger towers filled with smaller rooms that we can use to figure out where the larger factions should stay when they're around here. The small areas can be used for the factions of six or so like our group," she explained. "We can keep everyone with their team without any real issues, and it keeps the area organized enough that we'll be able to identify where each person is at a given time. I'd say that it makes this easier for everybody staying in the castle."
"You're nice and on top of things," Luke smiled to her. "I'm glad that you have so much confidence in your skills. It's certainly admirable to see."
Gemini shrugged nonchalantly. "It's just how I am. I hate to see something in disarray, so I figured that I might as well do what I can to keep this area as organized as possible. We're going to be spending a lot of time here in the future, and it's nothing like the hideout we're used to."
"That's for sure," Xia snorted. "We knew where everyone was at all times while we were in the hideout during the war on Daragon because it was only one room. All it took was looking around to figure out where a given person could be found. This place is a bit more complicated, but I don't think that's a bad thing at all."
"I'm glad to hear that we all agree," Jayler laughed. "As much as I love the hideout, I think I could get used to sleeping on a bed that isn't beneath four others in a column. The hideout had a nice cozy feel to it, but this... This castle really makes it feel like we're on a genuine fantastical adventure, and I think that's the perfect sensation to get from it all."
"You're such a nerd," Xia laughed, but there was no malice to her voice. She took a swig from her cup of water. "Anyways, we should probably take advantage of the cleaning while we have the chance. Who can say for sure when we'll be able to enjoy peace like this again? For all we know, it'll be a pain in the neck to go further when it comes to searching for the members of the other Hanilia factions."
"We're going to find a way to make it work," Lex assured her with an easy smile. "It's just a matter of figuring out a timeline that works for us. We'll have to track down a lot of people, and there's always the chance that they won't even know that they're Hanilia. If all goes well, we can count on the help of at least a few of the Draconic Superiors from time to time. Even if Daragon's reconstruction needs most of them a strong majority of the time, I'm sure that we'll be able to rely on a few of them showing up to help us every once in a while, and if you ask me, that's just what we need."
"There are so many of them out there... And we have multiple planets to sift through," Jayler remarked with a small cringe. When the group looked at him with worry in his eyes, he shook his head with an awkward smile. "I think that we can handle it. Don't get it twisted. I'm just thinking about how this is a huge undertaking, and we had best be ready before we go charging in, you know?"
"That's for sure," Gemini agreed with a small shake of her head. "As far as I can tell, there are ten groups of Hanilia. Those are the ones that Tuila told us about, and we've only found two of them so far. If we're lucky, we'll be able to track down all of the Hanilia easily. If we're lucky, they'll already be aware of what they are, and they'll have consolidated into groups that we can access in bulk."
"But if we're unlucky, this could be a really tedious mission," Xia sighed, a frown poisoning her features. "I suppose there's nothing for us to do about it, and we're just going to have to put up with whatever the world throws at us, but... I think that you know the problems with this already. There could be so many of them out there."
"We can start where we think would be best. I have no doubt that Tuila will tell us as soon as she knows where we should look first," Jayler declared to the group firmly. "After we start there, the pieces should fall into place. That's what I'm hoping for, at the very least. It would certainly make our jobs a lot easier."
"Maybe we should focus on finishing our jobs here before we get too carried away," Ocean suggested. "We're only going to stress ourselves out if we think about everything that we have left to do, so we should take it one step at a time and deal with each obstacle as it appears. We can find the members of the other Hanilia factions after the palace has been prepared."
Jayler couldn't help but smile to himself, happy to see that Ocean was able to keep them on track regardless of how nervous they all got. He nodded his agreement. "Yeah, you're right. Stressing ourselves out isn't going to help anyone but our enemies."
"You act like we have enemies right now," Xia commented. "Everything is fine, Jayler. There's nobody for us to fight, and that's a good thing. I don't want to have to fight all over again so soon after we've freed ourselves of the war on Daragon. Please don't curse us with your pessimism."
"I wouldn't go so far as to say that we're being cursed by pessimism," Luke interjected. "After all, Jayler is probably the most positive person here aside from maybe Lex. Everything is going to be alright. We don't have enemies right now, and that's what matters. We don't need to think about it further than that."
Jayler nodded his agreement. "Yeah, Luke is right. Now, how about we focus on what we came here to do?" he asked upon realizing that the rest of the group was finished eating. He rose to his feet and stretched his arms above his head before starting to walk towards the stairs. "We still have a long way to go before we're ready to start looking around for other Hanilia, and I think that we should focus on making sure this place is spotless. I'm going to start in the left tower. I'll meet you all there."
Jayler dashed off soon afterwards, leaving the rest of the group to rise once he was gone. They all looked to one another briefly before trailing after him, all thoughts of enemies left behind. The war on Daragon was over, and Mersall had been dead for a few weeks. Their mission had been accomplished, and they were dealing with the power that Hanilia possessed in times of peace. Everything was going to be alright for them, and there was no reason for them to worry about being dragged into yet another conflict... Right?
~~~~~
Jay, Arian, and Lana had left the City of Steel behind a few hours ago, and they were walking through the desert sand around the town contained in glass. Jay had thought it would be more efficient to simply teleport away, but Lana seemed to believe that there was something there. The determination was laced into her features, and she refused to let it go regardless of how many dunes of sand were swept off the ground by the blustering wind.
Jay had created a mask of magic to cover her face as a way of making sure that she wasn't blinded by the onslaught of sand. Arian had done the same, but Lana didn't seem to mind it in the slightest. She supposed that Lana would naturally be most prepared for this situation given that she was a robot known for creating various other creatures, so she had undoubtedly gotten ready in case a situation like this ever arose. After all, the City of Steel was located at the heart of a desert, so she had likely been ready for this for quite some time, and she was simply taking advantage of the modifications that she had been working on for years up to that point.
Lana's stubbornness had been charming at first, but Jay had to admit that she was losing faith there was anything out there in the desert sand. What could possibly happen of interest or import so far away from civilization? As far as she was aware, the City of Steel was the only town for miles, and she didn't know why anyone would want to establish a city in such an isolated area that lacked anything resembling life.
Arian didn't seem to be feeling much better about the situation, and he kept looking over at Jay in an attempt to get her to snap out of her trance of staring at Lana and begging her via eye contact to stop leading them into a sandstorm. Lana didn't appear to be willing to meet her gaze though, and she kept on pressing them further into the desert dunes. The heat was burning into Jay's skin, and she knew that she was going to start to suffer from a sunburn if they weren't careful. She cast a small charm to make sure that the heat wasn't too overwhelming, and she saw Arian do the same thing out of her peripheral vision.
Jay went to open her mouth to ask Lana if she knew what she was doing, but Lana spoke before she had the chance. "The sensors on the dome around the City of Steel have been picking up on something at the heart of this sandstorm for as long as I can remember. In fact, my personal sensors have been noticing something as well, and I want to check it out, because it feels like there's something seriously powerful hiding out here in the sand," she explained. She didn't even look up from her path, keeping her eyes glued on the yellow dust ahead even as Jay and Arian watched her quizzically. Each step was just as sure as the last, and her confidence was incredible.
"What do you think could be out here?" Arian asked, but Jay knew that he was really on the verge of questioning Lana regarding if they could take a break. There wasn't a good place to stop for a rest given that all that could be seen was sand as far as the eye could see. Uncertainty had clouded his eyes, and he kept on looking over at Jay with hopes that she had the answers he lacked.
Lana hesitated before shrugging. "I'm not sure, but I think that there's a small area out here that has a huge secret, and it wouldn't hurt for us to check it out. After all, this space has been isolated for ages, and it would be the perfect place for a Lakinya to hide. If that's really what we're up against, we need to at least be aware of what we could fear from this region," she told him. "Given how well-hidden it is from the rest of the world, it would offer more than enough cover for our Lakinya friend."
Jay couldn't criticize her logic as soon as she had heard it, but she wished that the village shrouded in sand was a little bit closer. Arian had started to breathe heavily, his jaw dropped from a mix of exhaustion and the heat. He was growing uneasy on his feet, and Jay suspected that he was nowhere near as used to this as she was. Jay had gone through extensive training to prepare herself for these conditions, but Arian didn't have anywhere near the same amount of experience. Lana's inherent advantage was not being human, so she didn't need to worry as much about growing tired during the lengthy walk.
Jay let out a gasp as soon as she saw a shifting shape on the horizon. The closer she got, the more sure of herself she was; they had found the village Lana was speaking about. Arian noticed it as well, and he immediately took off running, in desperate need of a reprieve after suffering under the strength of the sun above. Jay ran after him, if only to keep him out of trouble, and Lana trailed a few feet behind them both as the village came into focus.
The buildings of the village were on the old side for sure, and some of them looked as if they were on the verge of falling apart if pushed too far. Jay could see a few people milling about, and the city gates blocked her, Arian, and Lana from getting too close. There weren't too many buildings as far as she could tell, and they were all spread out as if the people didn't have anything to lose by taking up as much space as they wanted. She supposed that their perspective made sense given that they were in the middle of the desert where nobody would bother to look for them.
Arian didn't stop running until he had reached the gate, and he pressed his hands against one of the sideways beams of the fence, specifically the one as the top row. He looked around the town, in desperate search for the place where the gate opened for him to pass through. Jay slid to a stop behind him, and Lana arrived not long after. They began to look around as well, but none of them were able to figure out where they were meant to enter the town.
At first, Jay had to wonder if any of the people in the town had noticed them, but she soon got her answer when a young man wandered close to them. He had light brown hair with streaks of blonde in it, and his hair was swept off to one side of his face. His eyes were the same glittering green as emeralds, and he wore a muted red scarf around his neck. The rest of his clothing was hidden among the swirling sand. He tilted his head to the side as he watched Jay, Arian, and Lana.
"I haven't seen you around here before," he commented simply. He gestured for the trio to follow him, and he walked the group towards a gate that had been hiding behind a large post. The perspective Jay, Arian, and Lana had been scouring the town from had kept them from seeing it, but it felt painfully obvious as soon as the boy had them walking through it. He bowed kindly to them as he let them inside, and a gentle smile was on his face.
"What is this place?" Arian questioned, glancing around the town slowly. There were other people milling about the area, and Jay couldn't tell if they were ignoring the group deliberately or simply hadn't noticed yet. She only shrugged it off when she figured that the answer wasn't all that important.
"Welcome to our humble little town," the boy replied. "Cloudpeak is its name. We haven't seen visitors here in many years. I don't think I've seen anyone new move in since our current leader arrived over a hundred years ago... Wow. Times sure have changed."
Jay tried not to show her surprise at the young man casually mentioning how he was over a hundred years old. He looked even younger than she did, and she was only sixteen. His face was round, and his eyes were wide, giving the appearance of a teen with a serious case of babyface. Still, he didn't seem to mind, and his smile remained as shy yet bright as ever.
"Who are you?" Arian asked slowly, seemingly far less surprised by this revelation of age than Jay was. In fact, he didn't even appear to have processed it fully given how little he seemed to mind it.
The boy let out a gasp before laughing to himself. "Oh! I suppose I forgot to introduce myself to you... Sorry about that. My name is Ronan. It's a pleasure to meet you," he explained, pressing one hand against his chest before bowing to the three newcomers. "Welcome to Cloudpeak. If you need anything, all you have to do is say so. Feel free to settle down however you wish, and I'd be more than happy to help you. The people of Cloudpeak are all incredibly kind, and we would be more than glad to help you in any way possible."
"Thank you," Lana answered as Ronan grinned and dashed off. As soon as he was gone, her smile slipped a fraction of an inch before she looked over to Arian and Jay. "I have a bad feeling about this place. I don't know what's going on here, but... There's a disturbance in the area."
"What kind of disturbance?" Arian asked, his face suddenly pale despite the sun beating down on them from overhead. He clearly wanted to ask for more details, but he couldn't bring his lips to move further.
Lana shrugged before shaking her head. "I wish I could tell you, but I don't know how to say it for sure. I can tell that there's something powerful here, but I can't put a finger on where it is. There's something deliberately messing with my sensors, and I don't think that it has anything to do with the sandstorm. Be sure to stay on your guard," she explained softly.
Jay nodded slowly, unsure of what else would be appropriate to do in the given circumstances. She glanced around the town once again soon afterwards, and her gaze rose up to something on the horizon that caught her attention. It was on the far edge of the village compared to where she, Arian, and Lana had entered, but it was incredibly glaring once she was close enough to catch onto its presence.
A volcano was waiting on the other side of the town's border. It was partially hidden by the sandstorm, but the brown of the peak could still be seen when she looked closely enough. She doubted that it was active, but she had the sneaking suspicion that it was somehow important, and she decided to tuck it into the back of her mind in case it was somehow involved with the disturbance that Lana had mentioned.
Arian and Lana followed her gaze to stare at the mountain as well, though neither of them seemed to have an explanation for it. Jay hadn't ever gotten the chance to study desert terrain excessively, so for all she knew it was normal, but she couldn't help but be uncomfortable with the way that it was placed so casually next to a desert. It seemed like a clash of circumstances somehow, but she didn't know how to describe it. Arian had worry etched clearly on his features, and Lana was clearly attempting to rationalize how such a peculiar set of circumstances could come to be. Jay cringed at the realization that her suspicion wasn't out of the ordinary, and she wondered just what they had stumbled into.
Ronan was a strange person as well. No matter how she looked at it, there was something about him that was odd. She knew that mages lived longer than people from Earth. Their slowed age process was something she had been aware of throughout her life, and yet, she couldn't shake the thought that there was something strange about him. He seemed so innocent and relaxed in the face of the rest of the town. If there was something going on with the village near the volcano, then there was undoubtedly something strange about him as well, and Jay wished that she had the ability to figure out what it was.
Lana was the first person to move after the volcano was spotted, and she shook her head before taking a step forward. "Come on. We should keep moving. Maybe we can find a hotel to settle down in before we go to get some food. How does that sound?" she questioned.
Arian and Jay both shared a glance before nodding in response and deciding to trail after Lana. Jay couldn't forget the strange expression on Lana's face though, and she figured that her robotic companion was still trying to determine what exactly was so strange about Cloudpeak. However, finding the answer was proving itself to be far easier said than done, and Jay found herself wishing that she could do something more than watch the perplexed Lana think everything over.
Jay did her best to calm her concerns by saying that she would be able to figure out the mystery of Cloudpeak soon. She could find out what was going on, and then she, Arian, and Lana would be able to leave to go back to their mission of finding the Skylian Mages. However, despite this, she found herself thinking about how there was something odd going on that she couldn't see, and Jay wanted nothing more than to find the answer. She didn't know what the hell was so strange about Cloudpeak, but she was determined to find out, and she could only pray that the answer she found didn't wind up leading to something terrifying or dangerous. She'd seen enough of that to last a lifetime.
~~~~~
Colt didn't even know why he was trying anymore.
Working was nothing more than a damn headache, and he was getting tired of it. He was certainly wishing for something new to happen to him so that he would be able to get away from this aggravating environment he had come to despise so much over the years. He wasn't being treated well, but raising complaints was a sure way to receive even more frustrating missions, and he didn't know if he would be able to take that without snapping and punching something.
'We created you, therefore you have to do what we want.' Not for the first time, Colt found himself rolling his eyes at these words and wishing that he had actually been born rather than created from magic. He had gotten sick of dealing with these frustrating people ages ago, and he wished that he could leave them behind to go and take care of other business. He was too good for this, and he was fully aware of it.
However, they knew it just as well as he did, and they weren't going to let him go just because he threw a bit of a tantrum about it all. No matter how much he complained or kicked or screamed, they weren't going to let him go. It was a reality that he had come to terms with ages ago, and all Colt could do was roll his eyes at it and wish that something exciting would happen to pull him away from this frustrating life he had come to lead. All he was asking for was a brief break, but it seemed as if that simply wasn't going to be gifted to him anytime soon. If he wanted to find peace, he was going to have to take it by force.
But taking it by force wasn't an option for him, and it hadn't been in years. There were too many people working as part of the agency that had created him, and if he tried to get away, they'd react with spite and anger. They were petty and mercurial, and if he turned on them, they wouldn't let this transgression go until revenge had been served. Colt had learned this from seeing the way they treated others, and he saw how brutal they could be towards their targets. The last thing he wanted was to wind up on the receiving end of their brutality.
Instead of leaving, he was just going to have to bite his tongue and smile to the best of his ability, hiding his anger behind a grin that everyone knew was fake. It wasn't as if anyone was going to stop him from smiling that way though, because as long as he was working, nobody needed to bother arguing. It was only until he put up signs of resistance that they would feel the need to get angry, and then they wouldn't hold back.
Because they were so pushy, Colt was being pushed into his mission to learn more about the Ice Lakinya that had arrived in the remains of the City of Nadia. He scowled to himself as he attempted to figure out what he was supposed to do next. There was no clear answer, but that didn't matter in the slightest to his superiors. All they really cared about was that he found a way to get the job done in a way that didn't have the government on their asses for illegal activity. It had been this way as long as Colt had existed, and he doubted that it would change anytime soon. Unless the entire corporation went down, he was going to have to put up with this.
Toppling the business was far easier said than done though, and he didn't know if there were enough strong mages in the world to end it all. The Skylox Heroes would have been his best bet, but even so, they didn't dare to cross the group that had sent Colt out on so many dangerous missions up to that point. It was a headache that nobody wanted to deal with, and Colt couldn't even blame them. He wished that there was a way out, but he doubted that it would be easy to find one without committing too many crimes to ever be counted.
So he kept his frown tight to his face as he kept trying to figure out how he was meant to find this Lakinya, knowing that the consequences if he wasn't able to would be harsh. He had to bite his tongue to keep from muttering vulgar words under his breath, but he still kept searching since he knew that there was no other choice. He would give anything for something to break up this monotonous routine he had been part of for so many years.
Colt had lost track of how long he had been working for ages ago. If not for the notes that he had scrawled down in his messy handwriting regarding the date of his creation, he would have thought that he had been at this work forever. The date was fuzzy in his mind when he wasn't looking at it on a piece of paper, and he knew it was because he was so sick of all this. He was willing to pay any price for some damn freedom.
Colt sighed to himself and shook his head. It wasn't the time to get distracted when there was work to be done. His superiors were expecting a response from him, and he was already dreading the way they'd react if he came back without any new information. The monotony was particularly bothering him that day, and he was ready to lose his mind. Still, that wasn't exactly an option for him, so he just dealt with it as if it wasn't a major inconvenience that made him want to tear out his hair. He was hoping that he'd only have to hold on for a bit longer, but a voice at the back of his head told him that it wouldn't be that easy, and he knew that it was right. There was no end in sight no matter how he looked at the situation, and he hated it more than he could ever describe.
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Oh boy this update took a lot longer than expected to write
-Digital