Emily stands up, her heart calm with acceptance as she strips the two warm corpses lying before her ient of their magical possessions. She also takes the inhibition inse, finding a few spare sticks tucked away on a shelf beh the table, before removing the Spitter’s silencer and holstering it again. She g the scattered noble emblems oable, hesitating for a moment.

  I may get a reward for returning these, but it will probably garner more attention than I want right now.

  Deg against it, Emily leaves, heading to the closest exit aurning to the surface. She makes her way across the city towards The Broken Keg, following the same route Vagrant led her along st reset.

  Arriving at the pub, Emily looks in through the dirty windows at the gathered patrons.

  That’s a lot of witnesses.

  She ss the booths lining the walls, quickly pig out the one housing Lurker.

  I’m not hiding my mana signature right now and Lurker doesn’t seem to care. She’s probably not cheg her dete crystal. I could use a brew of imperception, but I’d rather not waste those when I don’t think I get more shadow boa.

  She turns, looking back at an alley oher side of the street that lines up roughly with The Broken Keg’s windows.

  That could work.

  Emily walks across the street into the alley, finding it empty other than a few piles of rubbish from the homes b it. She tinues for a few metres, until the alley starts to curve, before turning to face the pub again.

  She summons the Whisper, its cold grip dropping into her outstretched hand. She tucks the hefty rifle into her shoulder, standing in a banced, ral stance, and pces her face against the cheek rest. She reaches one hand up and adjusts the scope’s dials, setting the range and bringing the pub windows across the street into focus. Emily’s eyes gle, lighting up the dark alley, as she looks between the gaps in the booths for the heat of Lurker’s body.

  Found you.

  Emily smiles a predatrin as she adjusts her aim. Her thumb flicks the firior to silent before she gently squeezes the trigger. The rifle lights up with a green glow and kicks back fiercely, but Emily barely flinches, abs the impact, as the bullet tears out of the barrel with a sharp hiss, spiralling through the air in a straight liowards her target.

  The bullet shatters the window, before b a hole through the solitary booth’s wall and the head oher side. It keeps going, burying itself deep into the metal wall in the er of the building.

  Emily sees Lurker flop lifelessly onto the table in front of her then lowers the gun, rag the bolt and catg the spinning g it ejects.

  Targets eliminated.

  She stores the on again and turns to tihrough the alleyway, looking at the g in her hand. Arikes her, so she pops a bde out of a Cw as she walks aly carves a crystalline skull with a dagger through the top into the side of the g. She flicks the finished memento up and catches it, sliding it into a pou her utility belt as she ighe panicked screams fading away behind her.

  ***

  The remainder of the time before their expedition passes quickly. Juliana insists on taking over the mundane preparations pletely, dealing with food, transport, and shelter for the group, to take some of the burden off Emily’s shoulders. This leaves Emily plenty of time for the rest of the prep, and she soon finds herself sitting in her room, gearing up for another foray into The Gde.

  Most of her gear remains the same, but her body armour has undergone a slight remodel. Trag the spine along the back of the armour now sit eight reinforced gss tubes, filled with glistening red liquid. Each tube has a sleek metal housing that tains an ior system that be activated with a small spark of maa.

  Emily finishes fitting the Cws to her arms and gives herself a once over before standing up. She throws on a fresh set of bck roof robes that she finished enting st night, with blue runes woven into the inner yer, and grabs a small, wide-mouthed backpack covered in purple runes, a spatial bag she has prepared for Tom.

  She walks to the door and opens it to leave, running into Juliana standing with her hand raised to knock. She’s wearing a simplified version of Emily’s body armour, with a weight redu array and a weakened resistance array, using oh crystals due to low metal crystal avaibility, and no ior system. Emily looks her up and doreciating the battle-ready look far more than her usual mage attire, and noting the vas bag held at her hip.

  “M,” Juliana greets her cheerfully, throwing her arms around Emily’s ned giving her a kiss.

  “M,” Emily responds with a smirk after they separate. “What you got there?”

  “Weaving stuff. you keep it in your spatial ste please?” Juliana responds with puppy dog eyes.

  “Haha, I’ll do you oer,” Emily says, reag into The Clock’s poud pulling out a delicate neckce.

  The is made of alternating bd white metal links, with miniscule purple runes carved into the white ohe pendant hanging from it is a carefully crafted white lily. In the tre is a glittering purple crystal, surrounded by spiralling purple runes spreading out along the petals, and on the back is a sed small crystal, recessed into the metal to allow the pendant to sit fortably.

  “Here.” Emily presents the gift with a gentle smile and a light blush on her cheeks.

  “It’s beautiful,” Juliana gapes in awe, her eyes fixed on the enting pendant.

  “Well, I made it for you to wear, so that’s only fitting. Right?”

  Juliana blushes, pulling her hair out of the way as Emily reaches out and s the neckce around her neck. She fastens the csp with dextrous fingers and steps back.

  “I a bit of mana into it.”

  Juliana wordlessly plies, and the pendant lights up with ahereal purple glow that dances around the petals for a sed before fading again.

  “Woah.”

  “Perfect,” Emily purrs quietly, watg Juliana lift the pendant and stare at it with watering eyes.

  “It’s bound to you now. Simply hold an item you’d like to store and send mana into the neckce. Then to retrieve ahink of it and do the same again,” Emily expins.

  Juliana does just that, making the bag from her hand vanish as the lily glows again for a split sed. She looks back up to Emily, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “I love it,” she says, throwing herself into Emily’s chest and huggiight. “Thank you.”

  “Haha. You’re wele,” Emily says, gently stroking her hair for a few seds. “But, as much as I’d love to stay like this forever, we should probably leave now. We don’t want to make the others wait for too long.”

  Juliana gives her o squeeze before pulling away and nodding. Emily wipes the tears from Juliana’s cheeks before ing an arm around her waist and pulling her down the corridor.

  ***

  They meet their friends, all of whom are wearing their own body armour, provided by Emily just in case, in the cafeteria a breakfast in good spirits. Juliana proudly shows off her new neckce, and Emily hands Tom his backpack, filled to the brim with food and camping supplies, this time including cooking utensils. Enzo he oddity of leaving for an important expedition without a rge send-off, but Emily simply shrugs it off as unimportant.

  Afterwards, they leave The Dome together, hopping on a southbound train towards Southern Edge Station. They alight from the train and take the elevator down to the ground floor to meet their transport. Waiting oreet is a rge car, twice the size of those used on the Salvia expedition.

  “Tada!” Juliana chirps proudly, skipping out in front of the group to approach the driver, who is standing, leaning against the car’s front.

  The man looks over as they approach, dropping the pipe from his mouth and bowing deeply.

  “Hello, Lady Madonna. Are you ready to leave?” he asks politely.

  “Yes please!”

  The driver steps over and opens the car’s passenger door for them. The mages file in, giving the driver a nod of thanks on the ast. Ohey’re all in, the driver shuts the door and climbs into the front cab, firing up the car’s ehe vehicle roars to life and glides forward, the smooth movement in trast with the violent sounding engine.

  They could do with better sound dampening.

  Dante, Enzo, Hester, and Tom chat quietly while Emily leans against the window, watg the streets roll by. Juliana leans against her side, her head resting on Emily’s shoulder with a happy smile dang across her lips. The car soon arrives at the city’s exit and slides to a halt in front of the guards.

  Juliana stands up and opens the door, stepping outside and walking over to speak with the guards.

  Is this a differen family status? We were able to leave without a single check before.

  The guards don’t cause any issues, standing aside to let them through after only a brief versation with Juliana. She climbs bato the car, settling down against Emily again as the car rolls into motion again.

  Emily puts an arm around her girlfriend and gazes absentmindedly out of the window, her mind distracted by experiments in the Spellweave. They leave the city and drive through the tryside for a few hours, the car filled with excitement and expectation. Emily joins in with her friends’ versations occasionally, including expining how guide poses work and how she bought one from Oscar in preparation; and how he made her sign a magical tract agreeing not to give the pose to the Mandragos, or use it for their be, an easy traily to agree to.

  However, other than answering a few questions directed at her, she mostly spends the time messing about with spell creation, trying to create some more third circle attack spells.

  They soon arrive at the edge of The Gde. They all climb out of the car and thank the driver, leaving him free to return to the city, before settling down for lunch overlooking the mystical forest. Tom aer are both floored by seeing the magical hotspot for the first time. Juliana has already seen The Gde once before, from an airship while passing by, but she still appreciates the view from up close.

  Tom excitedly takes the ce to use his new spatial ste and pulls out several sandwiches to distribute amongst them. As they all eat, enjoying the view, Emily turtention away from the forest and to her teammates.

  “Hey, Tom,” she calls lightly to grab his attention. “Here, take this.”

  She reaches out a hand, summoning an item from her belt and handing it to him. He looks fused for a moment, before realisation fshes across his eyes as he gnces down at the simir shape fasteo Emily’s thigh.

  “Is this a gun?”

  “Yep! Since you ’t use proper attack spells, I thought it only reasoo give you another way to defend yourself, just in case. And since you don’t know how to use a sword properly, I figured a gun robably the easiest option,” Emily expins.

  The gun she hands him is a boxy bck pistol. It’s far less elegant than Emily’s personal ons, looking like a lumpy box with a hahe magazih sitting an inch below the base instead of sitting flush. Tom turns it in his hand, his eyes glowing.

  “Thanks, Emily!”

  “No problem. It’s yours now.” She summons a leather harness and hands it to him as well. “Strap it under your arm with that. It should sit fortably in your left armpit with some spare magazines under yht.”

  “So that’s why you took my measurements,” Tom mutters, spinning the harness around trying to work it out.

  After a few seds, he tahe harness while putting his arms ier rolls her eyes before shifting to sit behind him and taking the harness from his hands to help.

  “It takes the same bullets as a standard revolver if you ever o buy more. I’ll teach you how to load the mags once you’ve shot it a few times. To fire, just flick the safety up, the switch at your thumb, and squeeze the trigger. Leave it down when you’re not using it, and never point it at something you don’t want to shoot, even if you think it’s on safe. Finally, it should be pretty much silent: so it’s safe to use in there,” Emily says, gesturing to The Gde with her head before adding: “Oh! Just don’t try taking it, or the magazines, apart. There’s a nasty mix of magid explosives in there for arying to reverse engi.”

  Tom pales at the warning, looking up with shock.

  “Wait. Is it safe to use?”

  Emily scoffs at his question, looking past him to Hester, leaving him to his panic as punishment for not trusting her workmanship.

  “Have you learhe spells I gave you yet?”

  “I’ve learned protective bubble, se, and a few projectile attacks, but it’s gonna take me a while to finish them all,” Hester answers while tightening the straps around Tom’s chest.

  “Wait, you gave her spells?” Enzo asks fusedly.

  “Yeah, I passed along a few basic sed circle spells I bought since she didn’t have enough points to buy them,” Emily answers with a shrug.

  “Wow! Everyos gifts but us. I see how it is,” Dante says with his hand on his heart in mock offence.

  “Ha. I’ll show you some pretty explosions ter. How’s that fift?”

  “Perfect,” Dante responds with a grin and a thumbs up, drawing a few chuckles from the group.

  “Jokes aside, I do have stuff to give you two as well,” Emily summons a bundled up robe and tosses it to Dante.

  She repeats this, giving everyone in the group one.

  “They’re roof and tear resistant. Don’t say I never get you hings.”

  They finish their food, and Emily gives Juliana o squeeze before standing up and leading them towards the edge of The Gde. Before they cross the boundary, Emily turns to face them all, the looming trees standing tall behind her.

  “Right, this is it,” Emily begins with a serious expression. “Once we step into these trees, sider it an active battlefield. I won’t let any of you die, but it’s still dangerous, so stay on your toes and if you spot anything you think may be dangerous please say something immediately. I’d rather have false arms than miss something. I won’t tell you a formation to keep or anything, but try to keep Tom surrou all times if possible, and never move further forwards than me unless I tell you to.”

  She falls silent, lookiween her friends’ faces. She sees calm fiden those of the three who’ve been into The Gde with her before, and a twinge of uainty and ay mixed with resolve in the eyes of the other three. Grinning, Emily nods and receives six firm nods back. She turns on her heels and steps forward.

  “Let’s do this then.”