Aetherios System: Whirlwind

Chapter 71: Together Again

Alex froze mid-step, the violet energy snarling around his arms guttering into nothing as the voice interrupted his battle lust.

His eyes narrowed, straining past the steel mask of the Urhara soldier in front of him. That tone, commanding as it was, and the voice muffled by the helmet, was familiar enough to pierce through is anger.

“…Kate?”

The soldier hesitated. Then her hands lifted, slowly, unclasping the helm. The face beneath was all sharp cheekbones and smirking attitude. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s me.”

Behind her, more figures pulled off helmets. Alex saw Eric’s grin, and Allie’s fiery sass, Garret’s dumb grin. Even Tom-Tom was there, his teeth chittering as he shoved past the rest and clambered forward and held on to his leg.

For a heartbeat, Alex just stared. Then he huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Gods, I almost killed you idiots.”

Tom-Tom didn’t give him a chance to dwell on that. The little lizard scrambled up his frame with a kobold’s determination, until he perched on his shoulders, arms and tail locked around him like a vice.

“Never again, don't leave me again, tall one. Never.”

Alex winced but didn’t remove him. His arms were already full anyway, he was assaulted by Sarson’s crushing handshake, Allie’s fierce hug, Eric’s steady hand on his shoulder. Garret swung in for a high five, beaming.

Alex left him hanging.

“What the fuck are you all doing on this ship?”

Kate and Eric filled him in fast, explaining the ambushes, the disguises, and the stolen armor. Alex listened, half in disbelief, until Kate reached into her satchel and pulled out a pouch. She tipped it, and sets of armor and uniforms spilled across the steel deck.

“We figured it’s the only way,” Kate said, smirking. “Blend in, get a head start running before the Empire knows what’s missing. Assuming we can find something that’ll fit Ghrukk, and your giant over there.” She nodded at Aburi.

“Tom-Tom can hide,” the kobold said from his perch.

Alex snorted. “You’re insane. But I can’t argue, it might just work.”

He gestured back to his group. “We picked up a few extras. Symon, Aburi, and—” He stopped as the boy finally opened his mouth to introduce himself as Alex realized he didn't even know the kid's name.

“Kletos.” He offered it to Kate like a gift, and she studied him before nodding slowly.

Kate frowned. “More strays? Dangerous, but… fine. We’ll make it work.”

Alex was just about to explain about the storage room they’d looted, about the supplies they had stashed away, when the air split with a blaring shriek. Sirens wailed through the corridors, the walls themselves pulsing with angry red light.

Shouts rang from down the passage, heavy boots slapping against the floor.

Alex grimaced at the same moment every muscle in his body tensed up. “Well,” he muttered. “I think we’re found out.”

***

Karsali leaned against the rail at the side of the ship, eyes aimed at the sprawling land below. “Explain it to me again. Where?”

The messenger-soldier stood stiff, helmet tucked under one arm, sweat shining on his brow despite the cool night air. “The local dungeon, General. It was classified safe, under regulation. But just an hour ago, it breached... Soldiers found the nearby village already attacked. They were all slaughtered. Every soul, every species, we found no survivors.”

Karsali’s lips thinned. The soldier pressed on. “A squad’s already been dispatched to hold the perimeter and push back the overflow. I was sent to report directly.”

Her hand clenched against the railing. A dungeon breach. Here? Now?

Such a thing was nearly unheard of. Aether backfill regulation and monitoring made breaches impossible. Every dungeon was monitored quarterly for signs of overflow, and dungeon dives were regulated carefully, partially for this reason. If a dungeon went stagnant, with no divers going in for a long time to clear it, assigned delvers were sent by the Empire to cull it. That way, there wouldn't be risk of a breach. That was the law. The Empire hadn’t suffered a breach in over a century—two, perhaps.

Yet now, of all places, of all times…

Her gaze cut to Malric. The man’s face was carved from stone as he stared back at her. “I’ve already sent word to headquarters. Reinforcements will arrive within a day.”

A day. Her stomach turned at the thought. A day of holding against a dungeon run wild. A day while they were still shackled with the task of hunting the worldstriders.

She scowled, “Very well. We must shift focus and maintain a perimeter. Units will fallback to defensible positions, and move the ship over the village. I want placement set immediately. Defensive lines and barricades, everything. We dig in.”

One of her lieutenants snapped to action, lines of aether forming around his hands as he traced the order into the air and sent it off. A heartbeat later, the ship wailed with the blaring call of its emergency signal. Red light pulsed through every corridor.

She closed her eyes for half a breath. Her tone fashioned to be hard as steel, “I cannot let this be a failure.”

***

The alarm clawed at Alex’s ears. It was a shrill pulse of sound that set his teeth on edge. Red light stuttered across the passage walls, throwing the squad into jerky silhouettes as they pounded down the corridor.

Obby’s illusory map sat in the corner of Alex’s vision, no bigger than a playing card. Obby was only capable showing only the parts he’d been dragged through when the Urhara treated him like cargo. The rest was indistinct shadow. Tom-Tom was still perched on his shoulders, sniffing and pointing down hallways like a living compass, while Alex leaned into the strange pull of his instincts, the same gut sense that always told him where danger sat.

Behind him, boots thundered down the hallways. Allie’s called out to him as they ran. “Where are we going? The deck is back there!”

“I know!” Alex shouted, not slowing. He was forcing his voice to, at the very least, sound calm even though he felt the same spike of panic she did. “But back there is crawling with soldiers right now. They’re locking this place down.”

He rounded a corner so hard Tom-Tom squeaked on his shoulders, nearly thrown off. The map pulsed in his vision, a single uncertain line stretching ahead like Obby was guessing just as much as guiding.

“We need an exit they won’t be watching,” he continued. “Trust me, we go where they don’t expect us, then we break out.”

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He risked a glance back. Faces flickered in the red light of the hall’s security system. He could see Allie’s grimace, while Garret was grinning like a maniac. Probably just to keep the fear down. Kate’s expression was locked into cold focus. Somehow, against all odds, they were all together again.

Then the ship groaned from deep in its belly, and the floor tilted beneath his feet. Something big was happening outside.

Tom-Tom yipped and jabbed a claw down another branching corridor. Alex didn’t hesitate to trust the little lizard. “There! Follow me!”

“Why are we moving?” Ghrukk bellowed.

“That’s what ships do, silly,” Myrae shot back, practically skipping despite the clamor.

The ork huffed, “Why is the ship moving if they know we’re all on board and breaking out?”

Alex bit his lip nervously. That… was a good question. A damn good one. But there was no space in his head to unravel Urhara command decisions, not while sprinting through a fortress that wanted them dead. He shoved the thought aside before it could distract him further.

“Doesn’t matter,” he snapped. “Keep moving. Trust me and stay together.”

As he neared the next intersection on the Obby’s map, Tom-Tom once again tugged sharply on his hair, pointing like an excitable weathervane. He banked left, the squad sprinting after him in sporadic sync.

As they went, the whole ship trembled, a subtle undercurrent of shifting weight that made his balance swim.

And then he heard laughter. High and unhinged, ricocheting down the corridor behind them. Alex didn’t have to look to know it was Symon. Whatever storm brewed inside that lunatic’s skull, it was spilling out now. The sound sent gooseflesh racing across Alex’s arms.

“Eyes front!” he yelled, more to himself than anyone else.

They tore down another stretch of passage. Finally, the twisting hall ended and they spilled out toward a dead end. No, not a dead end, a single massive door loomed ahead, made of reinforced steel bolted into the walls. The hum of machinery pulsed behind it, clanky and industrial in nature. Even from behind the metal door, the sound was much louder than the alarms. The air vibrated with it, thrumming against Alex’s chest.

He skidded to a stop, as he stared at the door. Whatever was on the other side… it wasn’t a barracks or a food storage.

“Big door,” Garret wheezed, catching up. “Big scary noises... Not the usual.... escape route”

Alex flexed his hands, purple wisps of energy twitching at his fingertips. “Yeah, this is the one.”

He slammed his fist into the massive door, letting a concussive [Aether Burst] surge forward. The metal frame groaned under the force of his spell, it warped and then splintered with a thunderous BANG! The hallway beyond the door was peppered with shrapnel, shards of reinforced steel spinning across the floor as the team stumbled forward.

Inside… was an artificer's heaven. Or something close to it.

The engineering room stretched before them, alive with moving machinery, gears, and pistons. Glistening circles and tubes of metal pulsed in rhythm with arcane crystals, along with thick belts moving in perfect synchronization. The air pulsated with nearly unrestrained power, and Alex grinned.

Just what we need.

A few engineers in the room spotted them immediately. Their eyes widened and their hand shot up in surrender without any prompting. Unlike the soldiers they’d encountered before, these weren’t warriors, they were but mages of the craft. The sort who mastered energy instead of blades.

Alex waved a hand, and in seconds a few of the team leapt forward, binding the engineers and pressing them against the far wall. They didn't need to kill them, no unnecessary casualties, not yet at least.

“Okay… you want to do what, sabotage the ship?” Eric asked once they had all the engineers tied up.

“Exactly. Destroy the engines, and cause a distraction. It will slow them down. Buy us more time to get clear of the ship and run away”

Devon practically vibrated with excitement beside him, awe and envy mixed in his expression as he looked at the magical machines. Alex could see he was itching to study every coil, every arcane crystal in the place. Alex could practically hear the whirring in his mind: If we had time… if we had time…

Peter chuckled and shook his head. “Impressive plan for the guy who’s been kidnapped three times now.”

“Hey!” Alex barked, but Peter only grinned wider, shrugging.

Then the world convulsed.

A deafening boom! rocked the room, throwing everyone off their feet. Dust rained from the ceiling as machinery whined and groaned, the alarms blaring louder through the ship.

Alex tumbled across the floor, catching a glimpse of twisted metal and shattering crystal as he went. The explosion hadn’t come from them. Something else was happening, something big.

“What the fuck was that?” Garret’s voice cracked, disbelief coating every word. He asked this just as another concussive blast shook the ship. This time, everyone braced themselves, holding their ground as debris skittered across the floor.

“Uh, guys, you might wanna see this,” Lance called out. He was already at one of the large portholes, waving the rest of the team over.

Alex sprinted forward to his side. At first, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing. He could make out movement, shadows darting through the scorched forest below that surrounded the village they’d passed through earlier. Then it dawned on him. The flames licking at homes, smoke curling into the sky, and… bodies.

“Holy fuck…” Alex breathed, his words barely a whisper.

“By the gods!” Myrae said.

Alex activated his [Aether Sight], scanning the energy signatures of the chaos below. Every pattern confirmed his darkest fears. There were figures moving with impossible speed, and terrifying precision… but they weren’t just beasts or mages. They were Primal Chimeras.

But something was different. Unlike in the dungeon, when Alex and team fought the hybrid beasts and only chanced upon a couple of the stronger humanoid chimera, below them, every single chimera was humanoid. They had evolved, or adapted, far too rapidly.

Alex’s stomach tightened, and he fought against the bile rising in his throat. This wasn’t just a roaming pack of chimera, or just some beast-horde attack that happened at random. This was something else entirely.

“They… they’ve changed…” he said, his eyes glued to the growing inferno below.

Symon’s laughter rose up again behind him, “Oh, now it’s getting interesting, isn’t it?”

Alex shook his head and refused to respond. There was no time for jokes. He had to think fast, because those chimeras, whatever they were now, weren’t going to stop with the village. He knew that.

***

Karsali’s stomach lurched as the ship shuddered violently from the aether blast the chimeras sent up from the ground. The floor beneath her heels seemed to betray her, her balance replaced by a gut-punching rattle of movement. Smoke rose from the starboard side, curling up like living fingers. She got her feet back under her quickly and she looked around at the damage.

“Ma’am… the mana-sails have been hit… they're offline,” her lieutenant said. His eyes widened as his fingers danced frantically over the console buttons.

“Offline?!” Karsali barked, gripping the railing, but even the wood beneath her fingers seemed to shake and tremble.

"Yes, the attack disrupted the connection between the control array and the enchantments. We can... ma'am, we are getting some strange readings from the engines."

"What?"

And then it hit. Just a subtle tilt at first, then the full, stomach-dropping lurch as gravity gave out. Weightlessness gripped her gut, and the world spun sideways. Her legs flailed, and she found herself sliding along the deck, the railings no longer offering resistance. Around her shouts erupted, mixed with the harsh clanging of unsecured gear bouncing across the hull.

“Brace!” She screamed, though the command was useless in the zero-gravity chaos. Anyone who wasn't holding to something when the shift happened, was already doomed. Soldiers tumbled past her, colliding into each other and various pieces of the deck with muffled cries. The lieutenant’s hands had a death-grip on the console in front of him, and one of the navigation mages clung desperately to a dangling pipe nearby.

Karsali’s mind raced as she tried to understand what went wrong. The cannon bombardments had just been gaining control of the fight with the Primal Chimeras, and now the ship itself was being turned against them. All of the carefully layered strategies, the calculated firepower, the attrition plan; it was all gone in an instant.

Smoke and fire from the starboard side of the craft, thick plumes spiraled into and around the hull.

“This… this can’t be…” one of the lieutenants whispered, as the hull groaned under the strain of trying to stay aloft without a power system.

Karsali shuffled, her hands left the railing and clenched around a random rope tied off to a mast, white-knuckled. Impossible. This shouldn’t be happening. They can’t just—

Another blast rocked the ship from below, matching with a distant but thunderous echo from the forest outside. The chimeras hadn't let up either, and had attack the ship again. There isn't a way to recover from this, she realized with a sinking dread just as they entered a full free-fall. Below, the Primal Chimeras below were still moving, still swarming.

Her strategic mind clicked over rapidly, trying to understand the situation and figure out what went wrong. The counterattacks from the chimeras wouldn't have been enough to breach the ship. Something happened inside the craft instead, that was the only way. But who—and then the realization hit like ice water: Alex and his people… they’re on board.

“Keep us in the air. Any way possible,” she growled. But even she knew the truth, the ship was at the mercy of something far smarter, and far more unpredictable than any cannon or chimera horde. Gods damned Worldstriders.

The deck shuddered, throwing everyone once again. Karsali held on for dear life, the ironclad certainty of her command felt like a fragile, shattered thing slipping through her fingers.

The battlefield below was burning, the creatures were evolving, and the very vessel meant to protect them was now a death trap.

She stood upon a monument of power that was currently free falling towards annihilation.