Essentia Animus

41-Abandoned Crossroads

Even by morning, Riyxia's spectre had likewise felt so worn that she had spent the entire night just relaxing on the floor, so unfocused on anything as if she was herself also sleeping. As exhausted as this, none of the girls were willing to get up until dawn had fully completed its arrival.

Riyxia had actually wished her spectre could fall asleep, she didn't want to spend the night thinking of things, she herself wanted rest in much the same way as her body was. Still, after learning about how dreams worked, she suspected that the only unique consequence for her was how long the night had felt, the other girls really being left with haunting thoughts over a night that at least felt much more compressed. Her case though still seemed unique, as while the other girls would be haunted by thoughts of the day previous, Riyxia's thoughts were more directed to the day to follow. She had asked for time to discover a few things about her current self, and had accomplished a lot of personal learning, but she couldn't run from the influences of her other essence forever. She was pretty established in her current identity too, the fact that the other girls were also in reality foreign to their own bodies only proving to help resolve many concerns in that area as well. However, she could still remember how overwhelming it was to be seen as someone she wasn't, and walking into such a historical site would return her to such expectations.. as Khyzae's successor.

The three eventually got ready for the day, abandoning any pretense of making use of the alternate outfits they had, symbolic of their destructive impulses, the visual appearance of their aspect of destruction as a dusk shade. They style seemed to fit that description so well by this point, but it didn't suit any of them individually that well otherwise. There was plenty of reason to go feeling comfortable as themselves, Riyxia especially, but there was also reason to not associate their trip with feelings of destruction. Even facing a pack of thieves, slipping into such an augmented form would be overdoing it. With everything ready to start a new day, the girls left across the Irongate Bridge, to wait at the nearby bus stop. Vwyx already had the trip planned, having made use of her cell again to map out a clear route. They were only going to the academy again though, to meet up with Eqriuxzl at the train station. He had actually gone home overnight, and would be doing stuff at the academy mostly today, but would spare enough time to show them to their destination. It didn't take Vwyx much time to bring them back to the academy either, where they caught the 130 bus to complete the trip. While it was the same bus they had tried the time previous to get to the academy from a nearby park, this bus continued from the academy in another direction, being simply the continuation of the same route. They then followed Eqriuxzl when he disembarked from the bus at a chosen stop, continuing a short distance before stopping at a large fenced property, looking rather neglected over the past year. Eqriuxzl then rushed back to the bus stop, eager to return to his studies yet still leaving behind some well wishes.

Riyxia walked towards the main gate, looking up at the sign.. almost identical to the one from the village's mansion, clearly the original inspiration. While she had never been here before, she knew this used to be a place her predecessor had once called home. She had no memory of the place herself, but it was so incredibly obvious. She started casually approaching the gate, only to stop suddenly. Something here wasn't right. Sryine was actually the first to spot it at that point, the remains of the skeleton that was left behind by a previous visitor attempting intrusion. Following her concern, she quickly identified the same sight, then also recalled Eqriuxzl's warning. This place was highly secured, leaving him compelled to turn away, and that was incredibly obvious to her as well. Even with his passion, even after detecting a rift left behind by a gate, he would have no resources to deal with this level of security, this much danger. Vwyx meanwhile looked at the detering sign beside the gate, something both of the elves had missed. Do not trespass, indeed. Riyxia however found this really perplexing, could the gift have really managed such intricate traps? That didn't even make sense, to have such traps run automatically, it wouldn't have even been possible. Most of the traps must be then mundane in nature, but something beyond that didn't seem to fit completely.