Fortuna Verto

68-Ephemeral Duality

With everything resolved on one front, the two girls bid their farewells before switching back to the other front. Back at Izheelq once again, the two girls individually made their descent from orbit in their own individual ways.

Axln touched down on the ground first, her rift having been the quickest solution. She was not only on stable ground, she was actually back inside the rift room of the citadel. A quick review spelled out that she hadn't missed much that she hadn't expected from Lyun's report of things before setting off to find Mheridz. The rift instrument was still down, though that was supposedly the easiest expectation, the thing would be inoperable for no fewer than days, if not worse. There was no intent that things would endure quite that long, so it wasn't fruitful to worry about such at all. Instead, she turned her attention to everything else ongoing. The citadel as a whole looked to have gotten back up to normal operations once again.. which also prevented her from finding gaps to rift through to reach wherever the others would be right now. With a bit of wandering, she eventually encountered an Ersatz who guided her over to the workspace Mheridz had been using for healing. There, she found Lyun already having a conversation with Ezhyrae, the woman having recovered in the meanwhile. Mheridz caught wind of Axln scowling in the doorway, surmising that there was some disappointment in Lyun having arrived first.

"She became surprisingly quick, didn't she?" "Surprising.. yeah. Did she share any stories about what we just did on the other side yet?" "She said things have been taken care of, so you two could focus on things here. How long do you expect things to have been contained on that side?" "At least twenty generations, unless something unexpected happens. Of course, if things go wrong here, it could be even less. If things go quite well here, it might be a lot longer." "Wait, generations? Then..." "Yeah, something about a principle projection cannon, more like a planetary satellite inferno. She did some cross-world weaving to build a lens four times bigger than the moon. Pretty much turned that to gather solar might mixed with thermite intensity and... Yeah, none of those things remained." "Well, don't worry, I suspect that was just the easy part. We started getting a lot of sightings of voidspawn around here too, but they've grown rather timid. Whatever you did to fix things here did more than just restore our good fortune, you've broken our enemy's will." "Both sides would have lost contact with the temporal plane, but this side got to witness why. The other side was lost and confused at the disconnect.. but now remains silent. Apparently, not only has the temporal plane gone into lockdown though, they've also driven to disconnect for now entirely. Rosa's demonstration had been enough to show that they need not watch further, there would be no primitive chaos survivors on either principled fields. The ones here then are thus simply waiting to be eliminated." Mheridz was visibly impressed, having never considered that Axln could have ever made this day come at last.

"Want to join me on a scouting party, so that we could finish off what remains? This was your fight in the beginning, you might as well be around to finish it. Then you would get to rest at last, right?" "Uh, yeah, right. Sure, I guess, things are already going quite well here. Drew and Xwyhr both recovered, by the way, but they are currently sleeping. Lyun it seems was saying she would help with any of the repairs she had walked away to as well, and everyone else would be soon returning to their fallen siege-mantle. Luna it seemed had already been assigned to handle repairs there, she's already out with a bunch of the local ersatz, with several more due to follow once people are healthy enough here to return. If you had been a few moments later, that might have already happened, so we can expect to return to such a tranquility." "Lyun's going to follow them, hopefully after making sure the citadel is locked down. The place is a fortress though, so there wouldn't be any threat to worry about here. When we're done then, we should go meet up with them." "Are you going to let Lyun at least know before we go what you're doing?" "Oh, I passed her the idea quickly, she understands. Something about leaving me to finish up my uncompleted work, while she looks after anything which might distract me in the process. Also, about being careful." "Ah, the irony, it's always that one who seems to never know what careful means while you yourself proceed with minimized risks." "People surprise you, never just assume they won't change." Axln sounded caught in reflection to Mheridz there, though it was a message Mheridz could certainly respect. Axln however did need to have her arm repaired before she left, something one of the simple ersatz had helped her with, the same one who was also offering to guide them out. Of course, she didn't feel as if the results were that good, and she would certainly be asking Lyun for better repairs later, but it would do for now. She was thus still reflecting upon such a conversation as it would relate to Lyun while they both made the remaining stretch out the main entrance, leaving their guide behind once again.