Agartha was already one of the most massive metropolitan areas on the entire surface of Hadira, but it never stopped being impressive to behold anytime Kourin arrived there.  From the skiff, she could easily see the massive, round scar that had been left by the Nightlong War’s attack on the southern half – and the incredible effort that had taken place to repurpose the devastated land.  The former landing spire had largely been torn-down and the base of it repurposed.  Major thoroughfares that had once travelled through the area had been redirected into a perimeter circle, and there was a clear demarcation-line where the damage to the city was salvageable versus what had to be torn down.  Of the 12-or-so-across miles that were caught in the blast, the inner eight had to be reduced to park-land and memorial space…and a deconstruction-zone for the recovered Tuonela.


    Though the gargantuan vessel had been covered by what could only be described as a massive pavilion-roof, there was clear evidence that it was slowly being taken apart.  Taking some 70,000 people into care though was a massive undertaking on its own, and there were still structures surrounding the ship’s exterior that indicated the work was ongoing.


    Kourin let curiosity take over, and she put her glasses on so she could look up the vessel’s status.  Dozens of articles had come up, with the most recent celebrating ‘75% of the Tuonela’s passengers have successfully been awoken, and integration efforts proceed apace.  Continue reading to find out more about the Council’s efforts to bring them into the modern era…’  There was a secondary article that just made her shake her head, ‘Tuonela passenger information is available.  Click here to find a Lineage Office if you think you might have had relatives aboard…’


    It’s weird to know that these people are as old as I am, but none of them have had the same experience, so it’s like the time just passed them by, Kourin thought.  They just got on board a ship one day, went to sleep, thinking they’d be out for maybe a few weeks while things on Tau got started…and woke up 350 years later on a totally different planet.  Every one of them knows who Caeros was, too, maybe even met him at one point or another…  And they all know what the Earth was like when we left…


    She sighed and pulled her glasses off, and waited quietly for the ship to land so she could disembark.  Waiting for her was Phexides, dressed-down from the Information Officer’s uniform he’d been in when Kourin called him before.  She quickly jogged over and gave him a greeting half-hug as he yoinked her bag upward, “Wh- Hey!  What’s the big idea!  That’s my stuff!  Phex!”


    “What?  Am I not allowed to carry your stuff?”


    Kourin could only scoff and cross her arms, dangling half a foot in the air, “Not when I’m still attached to it.” She grumbled, both straps over her shoulders and one across her chest, “Tall people…  Honestly…  Pummedown.”


    Phexides just snorted a laugh and did as she asked, “Well unhook it, ya goof.”


    “I can carry it!” Kourin insisted, and started marching off, “So, where are we going?  You told me not to get a place, so…lead on.”


    “You’re testy.  What happened?  Trip was bad?” The taller man wondered, and stuffed his hands into his coat pockets as he caught up with her.


    “…Don’t you get nervous about the Tuonela people?” She asked, “That you might get recognized?”


    “Oh, they don’t get to wander around the city like that.” Phex answered quietly, “They’re being offloaded here because the services can get to them more conveniently, but once they’re awake, out, and assessed, they get sent out to calmer places – purpose-built villages - where they can get used to things gradually.  They’re only in Agartha for a few weeks, and they stay in the old landing spire – it was converted into a full-service transfer dorm.  I don’t think the first gen risers will be cut loose for another year or so.”


    “…Oh…” She said simply, and waited for the elevator to take them down.  She kept her words to herself until they were able to get into one of the small auto-passenger shuttles; small-occupancy pods that would take them directly to their destination without a pilot, “This is the first time I’ve been back to Agartha since I infiltrated the Fafnir Memorial last year.  I knew the Commander had landed the Tuonela here, but I guess it didn’t really make a difference to me until I saw it.  Landing it on top of the ruin…it’s kind of morbid, isn’t it?”


    “I was here when the Tuonela arrived.” Phex explained, one long, lanky arm across the back of Kourin’s seat, “The clean-up and recovery effort had already been finished for a while, and the city actually approved the landing with a vote.  They’re stupidly efficient here.  Guess I never appreciated it because we’d been stuck in Kitez for so long.  Nearly everyone in Agartha has implants, so after the initial shockwave knocked the World Cloud out of the area, and everything rushed back into the void…people who still had bodies to recover were recovered quickly.”


    “And those who couldn’t be?”


    “Everyone who went offline during the incident was declared dead.  Back-tracking their use of the Cloud made it easy to confirm if they were in the blast-zone at the time.  Last I heard, everyone had been accounted for in some form or fashion.  Agarthan people are a practical sort; if something needs to be done, it should just get done.  The Tuonela needed somewhere to land, and everyone rallied behind the Commander to make ground zero available.”


    “…I see.”


    “You don’t sound relieved at all?”


    “Guess I’m a bit distracted.  Maybe I’m just taking it out on the Tuonela…” Kourin explained, and leaned her arm against the pod’s interior window, watching the city fly-by as the shuttle took them on its pre-plotted course, “My mission directive suddenly changed as I was about to get on the ship to bring me here.”


    “How so?  Where are you going next?  Somewhere shitty?  Hopefully not straight back to Kitez…”


    “No, I’m actually staying in Agartha for a while.” She answered, and twisted to lean her head against her arm as she looked back at the man, “My Lord, Setharion Rydell, has declared that I’m to stay…and then the Commander made it happen.”


    “…Damn, don’t sound so disappointed?”


    She swatted Phexides’ leg for it, “It’s not like that!  But you know how Tallus’ directives work!  Once you have an understanding of a thing, if it works towards the end-game, you’ll feel compelled to drive it that way…  Being stuck around Seth, and knowing he can probably get me the information I want…I feel like I’ll eventually ask him.”


    Phexides just made a face, “I did give you an out…”


    Kourin gave a pleading look, “I know, but even asking him could get him into trouble.  If he starts looking into it…the Commander might get suspicious.”


    “So, make it not-suspicious.” He shrugged, “Scyrexian and the Void Rifts are directly linked.  Seth should have a natural interest in knowing what the Inquisitors are doing with his research.  Innocently point one at the other.”


    She rubbed her lip with a finger in thought, “He also has a natural dislike of the Inquisitors as a concept…”


    “You’ll figure something out.”


    “I hope so…”


    .


    Seth had moved away from the video archive to the biochemical labs, arms slotted into some massive protective sleeves that fit through a special wall.  Within, on a sample tray, was the leaf of a branch that had been shoved through the Rift and brought back, and was now covered in that same strange dark-purple chitin-like shell that Seth had noted on his first trip.  There was something inherently frustrating about looking at the material though, and he pulled his arms out so he could rub his face in quiet annoyance.


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    “…So, is this where I’m going to be working from now on?”


    Seth lifted his head quickly, and spotted a familiar face in the doorway.  He nearly kicked his chair out from under himself as he pushed off of it, “Kourin!”


    She gave a wave, “Sorry if I’m intruding.  I was told you’d be here.  Guess I’m allowed through already.”


    “Y-yeah!  Of course!  Hi!” He stammered, and shuffled over once he’d caught his chair.  He coughed to clear his throat and started again, “Uh…hello!  Welcome!  This is…part of the bigger structure.”


    “Fascinating.”


    Seth could hardly keep his thoughts in order, “Sorry, I thought I’d be ready for when you got here…you’re super early.”


    Kourin could only puff a laugh, and poked him a few times in the center of his chest as she walked past, “I dare to wonder what a prepared statement might’ve sounded like.”


    “…Probably…a little bit more articulate.” He answered, mostly to himself, but he quickly went after the dressed-down Myrmidon, “I don’t think I was mentally ready to see you out of uniform.  You look different.”


    “Hopefully not bad different.” She huffed, and went up to look through the glass at whatever he’d been working on.


    “N-no!  No way!  Not you!  You’re super cute!”


    Kourin looked back at him, and blinked.


    Seth could feel his face go red, “Uhhhhh…  Good?  You…you look good.  Totally fine.  You are a human person who looks normal.”


    She could only snort a laugh, “Am I really so intimidating to you?  Even in ultra-normal-mode?”


    “Probably more-so, to be honest.” He staggered, his whole body sagging helplessly, “At least I knew what I was nervous about when you were in costume.”


    That earned a blush from her, and she smiled, lifting a hand to gently pet his cheek, “No worries.  Okay, well, tell me what you’re doing, then.”


    Seth was all-but paralyzed from the gesture, and had to force himself to move again.  Looking into the specimen-room made it a little easier to sound coherent, “…I guess I should ask you first…what exactly do you know about what’s being researched here?  You’ve mentioned the Sterling Rose…and that’s a whole bucket of worms to unpack…  A lot of it is top-level that I was not expecting you to know about.”


    “Really?  How come?”


    He glanced out the side of his eyes at her, “…The…thing I was trying to say before, about Myrmidon not knowing stuff…  I was certain that the only ones who did know about the Sterling Rose had…well, ended up insane and then dead.”


    “Oh.” Kourin blurted, only to give an uncomfortable laugh, “Well, I do…it’s…a thing.  Yeah.”


    “So?”


    She crossed an arm over herself and rubbed her lip again, “How to explain…  There’s a certain level of information that flows freely within the Inquisitor Division.  For them, having access to that kind of information is kind of standard, since they’re already high-ranking researchers.”


    “…But the Myrmidon are a subset, distinguished by being afflicted.” Seth noted, “I won’t repeat my ill-chosen description from a few days ago…”


    Kourin just laughed and shook her head, “Yeah, that was pretty ugly, I won’t lie.  The thing is though…Myrmidon at my level have to know.  Maybe we don’t always understand what we know, but there’s still a basic level of awareness so we don’t muck-up missions.  What happened to the troupe that went to the Sterling Rose is…something of a stern lesson that the rest of us learned.  Never underestimate the power contained within the Cores, and never think you know your own limits.  It is called Limitless for a reason, after all.”


    “I see…  So…that’s why you told my dad and I that you knew what we’d been through.”


    “Kind of.” She retorted, “I’ve never seen the footage from the Sterling Rose, but I did see a redacted copy of the report.  I know that the Warp Magi were active, violent, and brutal…but what exactly they did and how, I could only infer.  I only saw enough to make it clear why Lord Rylen wanted a Myrmidon present at every Core extraction, since…” Her words trailed a little, like she was about to say something she wasn’t sure he even knew.


    “…Since?”


    She gave a worried look, “It’s really weird to talk about stuff when neither of us knows what kind of clearance the other actually has.”


    Seth’s brow crinkled, and he just pointed at the glass, “Inside that room is material recovered from inside the Void Scars.  It grows on organic matter, including people.  There’s an intelligence inside the Scars that whispers to people sometimes; it calls itself Scyrexian…it possessed two of my friends, and killed many more.  The whole purpose of my mission with the Rifts is to find out what they are, why they open, what the Hell Scyrexian even is, and…as we succeeded in doing, closing the Gates on purpose, so Scyrexian can never come through again.  It’s the thing that wiped out most of the Fafnir Knights last year and it’s a situation we can’t have repeated.  Your purpose in helping me is to be the afflicted eyes and ears that can perceive the information I need to give Lord Rylen some of these answers.”


    Kourin leaned back slightly at the sudden glut of information, “…Oh, well…alright.” She stammered, and cleared her throat, “Then…  What you should already know about the Warp Cores is that they all, at one point or another, contained the three Warp Magi that acted as Limitless anchors for the fleet.  Every Core ever retrieved by the Council had to be opened and emptied.  However…all of those Magi were always very dead, never to rise again.  After what happened at the Sterling Rose, Lord Rylen had good reason to worry that any given Core might have a Gate inside it, since the implication between that and the Rose is that…the Magi were corrupted by Scyrexian at some point in the past.  Even without Magi actually still inside the Cores that had already been installed into SkyFortresses, just the fact that they might have open Gates was concerning.  After all…your guy Ianori was actively dragged into one, and spat back out, giving us our first variant of Scyrexian on this side.”


    “…Right…” Seth nodded grimly, and lowered his head.


    “You said two friends though.  I only know about the one.  Who else was taken?”


    He went pale from the implication, “…Shit…  I got so worked-up in my explanation…”


    “So?”


    “…I don’t think I can say that part.” He answered, “I can probably count on one hand the number of people who know that answer.”


    “…Alright, that’s fine.” Kourin reassured, “So…then we can say I know everything short of that.”


    Seth nodded, and looked back into the specimen-room, “…The stuff that’s on the leaves is a chitinous substance that also grows on the skin of the people that Scyrexian possesses.  What I can’t explain right now is…why, on people, it manifests peripherally.  Like, beyond just covering their bodies like armor…it makes horns, wings even.  And they’re articulate wings, not just visual accessories.  They are flight-capable.  Mr. Ianori, he…after Scyrexian took him, he flew all the way to the R&D facility near Sargon and broke in.  It swapped bodies after that for some reason…I theorize that it was attracted to the Warp Magi corpses we brought back from the Rose, because it completely abandoned Mr. Ianori as soon as it found them.  It not only transferred, it fused those Magi together into one entity…and its transformation after that was rapid, practically on-demand.”


    “The Warp Magi were afflicted in life.” Kourin noted, “If Scyrexian is a creature of the Limitless, then it stands to reason that a body directly connected to the same would be easier to manipulate than one who wasn’t.”


    “Yeah, my thoughts exactly.  Not only that, but…based on observation, Scyrexian’s actions and capabilities seem to be influenced by the host it’s taken.  We saw Mr. Ianori fight and defend like a Fafnir Knight even after Scyrexian took over his body, so it…looked like it was able to tap into his knowledge and training for its own use.  Further, when it was using Mr. Ianori as a host…his body kind of took on the image of his Fafnir armor, with the same style of wings and everything.  With the Magi, it was…completely twisted into something monstrous, and changed depending on what it was trying to accomplish.  We took to calling it a Wendigo.”


    “…After the Earth-legend?” Kourin was surprised, Wow, I haven’t heard that term since we got here…


    “Yeah.” Seth nodded, “Well, the pop-culture version of it anyway, with the deer-skull for a head, and murderous intent against people.  Maybe it drew from the Magi’s memories and used the imagery to try and rattle the Fafnir as it hunted them.”


    “…That would make sense, since the Magi would’ve been much more closely-associated with Earth-legends than if Scyrexian took control of someone from Hadira.”


    “What I don’t understand is why the chitin-shell stays present on the leaves, but falls apart like dirt after it transfers out of a host.” Seth rubbed the side of his head, but then set that same hand against the glass, “When it abandoned Mr. Ianori…the shape it forced onto him broke off like a shell, and dissolved into nothing.  There was nothing left of it to collect and analyze…it was just…gone.  You’d think the shell here would do the same thing if the Void Scar it came from closed.”  He looked over his shoulder at the petite woman, “Do you see anything about it that I might be missing?  To me, it just looks like I dipped the branch in molten rock and it hardened into that metallic-rubbery stone.”


    Kourin narrowed her eyes, “Looks the same to me right now…” She started, and then activated her affliction, taking another look, “…Nah, same…”


    Seth just made a weird face as he looked into the next room, “Argh I don’t get it…”


    “Why not take a break?” Kourin wondered, “I’d heard you’d been really off your game since you got here.  Thought I’d come spring you early to help you get your head straight.  You never quit working.”


    He turned back towards the woman, a pink hue to his face, “Uhhh…y-yeah…you’re probably right…”


    “Then c’mon.  There’s someone I want you to meet.”


    “…Someone?”