Using the intel her sentinels fed her, Adan kept the team moving, searching for a spot where they could sit down and rest for a moment. Looking at the data she was fed, Adan noticed more signs of technology remnants that shouldn’t be present here. Much had been scavenged clean but they hadn’t been able to remove everything. Power cables stuck out of walls and segments of tattered alloy plating—bent from repeated attempts to pry them loose-appeared ever so often.
“Sai notes the absence of significant oxidation on the exposed metals; the excavation is recent. Within five years at most.”
“Perhaps the work of Emberon?”
“Probability of involvement is 52.8%. King Fenix has the second highest probability, 17.0%.”
Adan paused at a bend in the tunnel, motioning for the troop behind her to be quiet. Faint footsteps could be heard in the distance and two red dots approached at a steady pace.
“There is an empty storage room, fifty meters down the tunnel.”
Adan nodded. She turned to face Lynn. Getting eye contact, she raised two fingers and pointed at the bend. Lynn’s gaze sharpened and the duke with his warriors tensed. Adan pointed at Lynn, showing him the letter ‘L’ before starting a slow countdown from five.
As she hit zero, both she and Lynn sprung from their hiding spot, diving towards the two people that had just reached the bend in the tunnel. Adan took the person on the right, Lynn the one on the left. Caught unawares, both were easily knocked out.
Adan effortlessly hefted one unconscious man over each shoulder and jogged the fifty meters that remained to the storage room. Two more BioArmor sentinels rolled of Adan’s skin, lodging themselves at the nape of the unconscious men’s necks, ready to stun them again if they should start regaining consciousness.
With everyone inside the storage room, Adan closed the door behind them, relaxing slightly.
“Okay, we should have some cover here for a while. Let’s rest for half an hour if possible.”
The four men spread out within the room. Sitting on the floor to catch their breaths. Adan felt a little bit guilty for causing their dizziness with her little explosion earlier, but would not have changed her tactic.
She was, however, pleased to see that Lynn had been the fastest to recover. He had coordinated beautifully with her just now.
“Any idea where we are?” Lynn asked, massaging his jaw. His ears must still be ringing a bit.
“Judging by how far we have moved, we are almost halfway to the castle. According to the intel we have from Dallas, I wouldn’t be surprised if these tunnels are somehow connected to the castle dungeons.”
Lynn’s eyes snapped to Adan. “You mean my father and brother might be here somewhere?”
“And the King,” Adan said with a nod, but reached out a hand to stop Lynn from standing up. “We need to rest a bit before we head out. Don’t worry, if they are here, I will find them.”
“But-“
“Sometimes, you get better results by waiting.” Adan winked.
“Ancient Adan,” Kimba interjected. “If we find the captives, what would be our next course of action? Our plan to meet up with Colonel Dallas and her troops will be hard to achieve currently.”
“It will have to depend on who we find first and their condition. From a tactical standpoint, “Adan glanced towards Lynn, “saving King Fenix should have priority. With him alive, it will be easier to rally the masses.”
“And he would have authority to send reinforcements to the boarder,” Lynn added logically, but Adan saw his fists tensing. It was the right choice, but it was a painful one for him.
[Contact with Sentinels X045 and X099 re-established. Transfer of data storage initiated.]
A sudden notification caught Adan’s attention in the barrage of messages flying by her periphery.
“Adan?” Lynn must have noticed her stiffen but she held up her hand to keep him quiet.
“Sai, status report.”
“Our released scouts have gotten within transmission range of the sentinels stationed with Emberon and the King. They have initiated a data transfer relay.”
“Do we have a clear passage to the location of the King?”
“Negative, but Sai has redeployed the scouts’ priority. Current gap is 177 meters.”
“Status of King Fenix?”
“Stable vitals and currently conscious. Logs show that he is being drugged, alternating between hyper awareness and a comatose state. Torture tactics.”
“Is Emberon with him?”
“Negative, but preliminary data indicates that they are at most fifty meters apart.”
“Time until full data transfer?”
“Sai has poor connection. It will take at least two hours. Real time data has an estimated ten minute lag.”
“Keep tracking Emberon and the King, and divert some sentinels to find a escape route to the surface.”
“Affirmative.”
“My apologies,” Adan stood up, addressing the room. “The rest will have to wait after all.”
The four men looked at her in confusion.
“I have found the King.”
Lynn followed behind Adan with silent but hurried steps. He hadn’t even asked her how she knew where to go this time or how she could possibly have found the King while just sitting still for a few minutes. He knew she wouldn’t be able to answer truthfully anyway.
He glanced at Duke Kimba and his men next to him who followed with equal lack of questioning.
‘Blind faith has its advantages, I suppose,’ he mused, not sure if he should be relieved or scared by it.
As they moved, the style of the tunnels or corridors shifted often. Sometimes they looked much like the corridors of his father’s dungeon back home at the marquessate, sometimes just as foreign as the first corridor they had entered through.
Regardless of how they looked or how many forks they had before them, Adan moved without hesitating. The only times she stopped were to wait for a patrolling guard to either pass by or be knocked out if needed.
Eventually, she stopped in one of the more foreign-looking corridors. She lingered for a moment at a seemingly bare section in the wall, studying it carefully. She placed her palm on the wall and suddenly a crack appeared, sliding part of the wall to the side to allow entrance.
Inside, Lynn was surprised to find a room filled to the brim with . . . pillars? Rows upon rows of structures that stood like shrines—tall, narrow, ribs of blackened steel housing layer upon layer of humming slabs. Lights blinked in disciplined patterns—green, amber, red—each pulse too precise, too intentional, like the heartbeat of a mind that didn’t bleed.
Coiled cords ran from the pillars to the walls like arteries, feeding it, or perhaps being fed. The air wasn’t hot, but charged—like the moment before lightning struck. He felt it in his teeth, in the edge of his breath. No fire. No ice. Just static tension and the low, almost reverent hum of something… calculating.
Adan, of course, was already kneeling beside one of them. One hand brushing a panel, the other dancing over glowing glyphs he couldn’t read. Her eyes lit by the glow—the gaze holding no wonder, but recognition. Like this thing whispered to her in a tongue no one else could hear.
Lynn watched in silence.
She belongs here, he thought—not with contempt, but a distant ache. Not in the forest, seemingly clueless of the world. Not in the Sulmani castle or the Sun Tribe camp. But here—where nothing made sense to him.
“Impressive that so much survived until now,” Adan murmured. “Ah, here we go.”
Flipping a switch, a hatch appeared in the wall behind the pillar Adan was working on, showing a narrow tunnel, barely large enough for a full grown man to crawl through.
She moved to another pillar and repeated the process, opening yet another space behind it.
“Duke Kimba, please remain here as a rally point while your warriors scout ahead in this cable shaft. There should be an exit roughly 50 meters in that will lead to a path connecting to your Chief’s quarters, but the exit will need to be pried open. We might need to leave in a hurry once we return, so the passage must be secured in advance. Return and wait here once done.”
“As you command, Ancient One,” the two warriors echoed.
Adan turned to Lynn. “We will head in there,” she pointed to the first passageway. “The King should be reachable from here and we can hopefully gain some insights to Emberon’s plans and your family’s whereabouts while we are at it. Any questions?”
No one spoke.
“Okay, forward.”
Swiftly and silently, the two tribe warriors crawled into their tunnel, each with a small dagger in hand. The odd environment clearly left them uneasy but they showed no signs of hesitation. Duke Kimba took a position in the center of the room where he could see all the exists, nodding to Adan.
“Let’s go,” Adan took the lead, entering their passageway on all four. Lynn gulped as he followed, determined to not look up from the floor once in the tunnel.
The tunnel was tighter than Lynn expected, cords snaking the walls like metallic vines. The air was stale, filled with a low hum that buzzed against his teeth.
They crawled in silence. Adan still navigated each twist and fork without hesitation, the glow of distant glyphs painting her silhouette in flickering light. She seemed utterly unfazed by the cramped space they were in.
She moves like she’s done this before, Lynn thought, trying not to think about the wires brushing his arms or the fact that turning around would be near impossible.
At an intersection, Adan paused. A faint green sign pulsing over her head. She gestured for silence, then moved to an adjoining tunnel. Lynn mirrored her movements, positioning himself opposite Adan.
She deftly opened a box on the wall, flipped a switch—
—and the floor beneath them faded into transparency.
Moans of pain instantly filled the tunnel, covering the surprised gasp Lynn barely retained. Below them was a brightly lit room with white walls and floor. At least, the floor had been white—blood and grimed covered much of it now and a man was fixed into a strange chair at its center. Lynn recognized him at once.
King Fenix.
White cuffs around his ankles, wrist and neck locked his mostly naked body to the chair. The once muscular man had withered down to a fraction of his previous self and several wounds colored his usually pale skin in all colors of the rainbow.
Lynn clenched his fists, his thoughts going to his family and their current situation.
“Resist all you want, King Fenix,” a snarky voice pulled back Lynn’s attention as another familiar figure stepped into his field of view. “It is just a matter of time until I find it.”
Emberon.
“Perhaps,” the king groans through grit teeth. “But I am not about to make it easier for you.”
Emberon laughed. “Why resist so much? Valdmani has started its assault on the southern boarder and the Marquess will not be able to defend it on her own for long.”
Emberon shoved a hand-held device into the kings ribs that clicked loudly upon contact. Fenix’ body spasmed violently, groaning in pain.
“Or are you putting your money on the ice bastard to save the day?” The former bodyguard snickered. “What can an unawakend little whelp, hated by the people, possibly do?”
He pulled away the odd device, the king’s body instantly relaxing.
“Don’t . . . don’t underestimate the Solmanean people,” King Fenix laboriously panted, but Emberon just scoffed.
“A superstitious, pompous people, too wrapped up in themselves to see the bigger picture. You too. You sit on this wealth of wonder,” Emberon held up his device and gestured to the room they were in, “but you refuse to use it. If you just tapped into a bit of the Ancients technology, you would have dominated the continent long ago!”
“The treaty demands—”
“Screw the treaty!” Emberon slapped the bound king. “The Ancients have been gone for hundreds of years and have shown no signs of coming back. You are just too cowardly to act!”
He back up a bit, an almost manic look in his eyes. “Besides, even if they do appear, with the ultraplasm rifle in hand, what do we have to fear?”
Next to Lynn, Adan noticeably flinched, and when he got eye contact with her, there was clear apprehension in her eyes—confusion and perhaps even some fear. It was not a look he had seen on her before and if felt . . . foreboading. However, after a moments pause, her gaze returned to normal and she just shook her head, indicating form him to put his focus back on the room below.
Emberon had moved closer to King Fenix yet again. “Mark my words, Valdmani will claim this land and bring in a new, advanced era. The time you are so desperately trying to buy, is just more time during which your people will suffer. More time you will suffer.” The spasms started again. “Now, tell me, where have you hid the rifle?”
Despite the clear pain he was in, the King refused to speak. The cycle of pain and silence repeated for a while, giving Lynn newfound respect for Fenix’s fortitude. Eventually, Emberon gave up. Exasperated, he threw the device he had been holding into a corner and stormed out of the room.
“Enjoy another foodless day, Your Majesty,” he sneered at the door. “No dreamless sleep will spare you today!”
The door slid shut, oddly silent for such a dramatic exit.
Lynn glanced at Adan, who held up a finger to her lips. Commanding he remain silent.
She waited for what seemed like ages, before returning her attention to the box by her side and flipping a new switch. The see-through membrane below them clicked softly as it slid aside, opening a path to the interrogation room.
“Stay here,” she whispered. “Once I’ve freed the king, can you manipulate some water to pull him up into this shaft and bring him out?”
Lynn wanted to object, he didn’t like the idea of her going down there alone, but he knew the strategy was better this way.
He nodded and with a pleased smile, Adan soundlessly slipped down through the opening, like water running between rocks. She approached King Fenix from behind, covering his mouth before he noticed her presence. He struggled fiercely, but calmed down when Adan leaned in to whisper something in his ear.
He nodded vigorously and Adan let his mouth go. With familiar precision, Adan unlocked the King’s restraints before motioning to Lynn with her eyes. He acted right away.
A gentle stream of water poured out of his palm, slowly curling itself around the King’s body and carefully pulling him up towards the tunnel entrance. When King Fenix was inside, Lynn noticed that Adan was preparing to jump up on her own, but he quickly extended a second strand of water, wrapping her up too. Adan suppressed a chuckle but let herself be pulled up. The water was like an extension of himself—he easily felt the softness of her warm skin, just as if his fingers had brushed against her.
It was a distracting feeling. Probably for both of them because Adan paused a moment once back in the tunnel, coughing slightly, before indicating that he should start moving the King back the way they came.
Lynn obliged.
As they began their slow crawl back through the winding tunnel, Adan let her mind drift briefly—to the rifle.
If it referred to what she feared, she had seen it once. Only once.
The day she was transported to this dimension.
She had heard of it plenty enough, documents locked behind layers upon layers of clearance. It was the culmination of two decades of research. The weapon was small yet powerful. A shot would travel at nearly the speed of light and so far, no material had been discovered that could withstand a direct hit. This was a combination so lethal that even High Command had hesitated to greenlight serial production and yet somehow the rebels had gotten their hands on one.
The rebels had attacked her squad with it, and it had caused the X-Materia to explode, propelling her into a new dimension. That explosion had been a fluke and Adan had no hopes that she could recreate the reaction safely, but there was no doubt that an ultraplasm rifle was considered a harbinger of destruction in the Federation, and it would be even more so here.
“Sai,” she asked tentatively. “How likely is it that Emberon has a functional ultraplasm rifle?”
“Unknown. Possibility of misidentification is 31.7%. However, if accurate, recapture of the weapon qualifies as a Black-Class mission.”
Adan’s breath slowed.
It changed everything.
Not just for Fire Isle. Not just for Solmani. This was a Federation-level incident now. And if she failed here—Playzone or not—there might not be a second chance.
“Sai recommends a full recall of BioArmor sentinels to mitigate the increased risk level.”
Adan thought about it for a moment but shook her head. “Denied. If the ultraplasm rifle is what we fear, the BioArmor will make little difference. It is more important to prioritize trying to find the weapon first.”
The A.I. didn’t answer and Adan got the feeling it was sulking. A smile formed on her lips, despite everything.
“Keep tracking Emberon. Prioritize alerting me when he discovers that the King has been rescued.”
“. . . Affirmative.”
Lynn and Adan reached the server room again just as Duke Kimba’s men reappeared, both dust-covered and out of breath.
“We’ve pried it open. The tunnel leads into a cavern that matches your description. The chief’s quarters can’t be far.”
Adan nodded as Lynn carefully lowered King Fenix to the ground. The man grunted painfully, but his gaze remained sharp as he inspected his new environment.
“Marvelous,” he coughed. “Yet another area of the Ancient’s fort that I have never seen before.”
Adan crouched beside King Fenix, her eyes scanning the monarch’s fragile frame. His breathing was labored, his bruised skin slick with sweat. She placed a palm on his chest, deploying further BioArmor sentinels to get a more detailed scan. An invisible weave spread out, curling like a lattice across his chest. Even entering his blood flow through open wounds.
Data streamed into her vision.
“Vitals critical but stable. He needs immediate hydration and nutrient support,” Sai reported. “Several broken bones and signs of cognitive degradation is present. Neural inflammation likely caused by repeated stimulant-depressant cycling.”
Adan pressed her lips together. It was worse than she’d hoped. But salvageable—if they moved quickly.
“Kimba,” she murmured. “As guessed, we can’t risk taking him deeper into the complex. He won’t survive it.”
The duke nodded grimly. “Then we follow our original plan?”
She looked down the shaft they had crawled through and then back toward the equally narrow passage the tribesmen warriors had cleared. The duke’s team would be hard-pressed to move the king through it without causing more damage.
“We need to regroup.” She looked at Lynn. “You will join Kimba’s team, escorting the king to safety.”
Lynn’s jaw tensed. “And you?”
“I continue forward. Emberon mentioned a ultraplasm rifle. If it is what I fear it is, we can’t afford to leave it behind.”
Her gaze shifted to the barely conscious man on the ground. “King Fenix, you probably don’t trust me enough for this, but I need you to tell me all you know about that weapon and where to find it.”
The king sighed laboriously. “It is not a matter of trust, young bodyguard. I can’t give information I don’t have.”
Adan frowned.
“There are indeed records of the so called ultraplasm rifle in Royal Annals, but it does not state where exactly it can be found. Emberon believes it is a secret passed by word of mouth between a king and his heir but all my father could tell me was that it is hidden deep underneath the castle, only accessible by those who hold the Ancient’s Seal.”
“Ancient’s seal?”
“My father didn’t know what it was. However, Emberon is obsessed with the Ancients’ technology, I fear he will have found more information that could lead him to the weapon.”
“Sai?”
“Sai has no good hypotheses on what the seal could be. However, BioArmor sentinels have discovered a room not far from here that Emberon seems to use as an office.”
She didn’t need further explanation.
“Okay. Lynn, you will escort the King, together with Duke Kimba and his men. I will search for more intel on this weapon and signs of your family.”
Lynn hesitated. “You don’t have to do it alone.”
Adan gave him a soft look. For a moment, just a moment, her mask slipped.
“I know. But I’m the only one who knows what to look for. You’re the only one who can keep him alive through that narrow passage. Make his journey smooth and keep him hydrated.”
She didn’t want to wait for a counter argument. Rising, she moved over to one of the server racks. The topographical map of the tunnels were almost complete and she had already determined the path to make it to Emberon’s office unnoticed. Another shaft would take her there.
She quickly opened the service cable shaft of the server and moved to the entrance but Lynn had stepped over to block her path.
“I’ll come back for you,” Lynn said quietly, his hand brushing hers for a moment. “Don’t do anything reckless.”
She gave him a lopsided smile. “Too late for that.”
Then, without another word, she slipped past him and disappeared into the shaft beyond.
Snowy Publications 