De Loco must had left his radio channel open because when the Chameleon 's flame cannon detonated with a burst sounding like all Ixa'taka's jaguars roaring in unison, the radio on the Little Jack also flared into nigh-incomprehensible rage-gurgles that mixed mathematical insistence that nothing could possibly be wrong with the Valuans' weaponry with stamping shrieks of "statistical impossibilities."
It might have been funny—Vyse and Aika certainly exchanged sly glances as the mighty Andrés De Loco slipped into his tantrum—but even as the Chameleon fled into the distance rightfully bearing the vicious scars of battle, the entire affair seemed pathetic. A farcical contrast to the horrible violence wrought by De Loco's weapons; he burned an entire jungle but the moment he felt a flicker of righteous fury, Valua's finest mind circled downward and downward into a deep incoherency. The center could not hold.
When you boil it down, there's only ever three types of people who throw tantrums. The first are children and they can be mostly forgiven for the display. The world is large and confusing for even the most experienced of souls. A toddler understands basic things. Without even having the words, they understand that the grumbling in their tummy is really annoying and that if you make enough noise, there's usually a very large person with a smile who will bring you something to fix that. As they get older, the technique develops somewhat more insidiously; the idea of "need" is replaced with "want" and so instead of making noise to merely get food, the child will scream to get a cookie instead. This is the basis of any tantrum: there is a thing that is desired and no level of dignity worth keeping if it means getting whatever you want. Which leads to the second of the three tantrum throwers: the rich.
Rich people are, with the rare exception of those actually engaged in fair enterprises that the world was chance enough to reward, little more than children who have the bizarre luxury of owning enough pieces of shiny metal that they can toss the jingle-jangly trinkets about to solve most of their problems. Want to "win" an election? Kill someone? Gold will get you that and it usually doesn't cost that much at all. When gold doesn't work? That's when the tantrums start again because the rich never really grew up at all. They never learned the value of work or the crucial importance of a genuine lover's embrace. In nations Valua and even among the merchant-enterprises in Meridia and Nasr, the rich inherit their gold and never comprehend its worth. Who is the richer man, after all? The Andri castellan who feasts on roast pig whenever he wants or the mill-worker who has saved his final coin for his first fresh bread loaf in months? If you'll permit the digression, it may suffice to imagine the child's tantrum for a cookie the same as a rich man's stamping and stomping when he learns that there's a few people whose heads he can't simply order chopped. The dental is the thing; a tantrum arises when ease is denied and comfort found wanting.
But then there are the ideologues; the men and women who have crafted precise models of the world and believe in their surety with all the confidence that someone might feel in saying "when I throw this ball into the air, it will fall back to the ground." These people don't have theories about how the world works; they have truths that are categorical. Andrés De Loco's truth was a hard held conviction that in spite of his frail body, his mind had proven him invincible. That he had overcome defeat entirely and that his life would contain victories and conquests without any end.
Which is why the batshit insanity spewing from Andrés De Loco's mouth over the radio was of an entire caliber altogether. More than a child denied a cookie or a nobleman denied the venal ease of gold's power, De Loco was a man of scientific principles who was realizing for the first time in recent memory that he was not invincible and that his construction of the world was not empirical. That the gift of his mind, while a powerful counterbalance for a weakened body, was not an invulnerable shield that protected him from fault. It did not matter what destroyed the flame cannon. For the purposes of this breakdown, it matters little if the blow came from a well aimed cannon, an impossible magick'd arrow shot, or even a stray bumblebee popping into the wrong valve. What matters is that he'd lost at all. That the ever-changing, ever-impressive Chameleon —a steel cocoon for a man who already sealed himself in an environmental suit—could be breached. His math was wrong; his model false.
Indeed, let's leave no room for doubt in the mind's eye. De Loco, immoral demon though he was, did possess one of the keenest scientific minds in the course of history. And after his loss in the Ixa'takan skies that day? His magnificent mind broke for a good few minutes and the man screamed like a bitch.
"This was our foe?" Tika'tika asked with haughty dismissal as he walked onto the bridge.
Before their battle, the voice on the radio had sneered and mocked and cut a conqueror's tone but it had all washed away in the face of a single loss. Tika'tika, a man who had grown used to subsistence under Ironhead banner although never entirely defeated, grinned wide enough that the edge's of his smile exceeded his mask's wide bird-beak visage. His heart felt drenched in nectar and honey. The Ironheads had all the might he could imagine and even things he could never have conjured in his deepest nightmares; they had held his nation by the throat for nearly a decade. That gripe seemed so fragile now.
Tika'tika nodded slowly between Fina and Vyse. His movement lacked the characteristic rooster's twitch.
"I do not know if she is Quetya," Tika'tika offered with some affected sacrilege. "But there is at least one way in which you are all blessed.."
Vyse regarded the older man with all the joy of a barfly awaiting a punchline. "What's that?"
"To be underestimated as you are," the hunter replied with a chuckle. "It is a terrible power."
Aika winked at Tika'tika, leaning lighting on a side console. "Not our fault Valua's so dense."
Vyse looked sincerely at Tika'tika. "We're not blessed," he insisted. "It could have been any pirate that faced De Loco and he would not have treated them like a threat."
"It was not any pirate," Tika'tika said cooly. "It was you."
"Us," came a soft reply. It was Fina, speaking with unbridle warmth and understanding. "Because the truth of it is more complex; it is not we who are especially blessed but everyone under the Green Moon."
"The last few years have not felt hallowed," Tik'tika replied darkly.
"Perhaps not," Fina conceded with diplomatic grace. "But you've seen for yourself now the ease at which your conquerors buckle when tested. That fact is your blessing. Not only can you make them bleed but once they experience even the lightest cut, they'll turn coward."
Drachma gave a dramatic whistle. "A'int much a priestsome thing t'say, lass.."
The blonde woman smiled innocently. "Well, I have been spending a lot of time around pirates."
Cupil slipped off Fina's wrist to bob and duck and weave. Cuee! Cueeee!
"Cupil also wants me to remind you that he can turn into a sword," she added more playfully before her tone shifted to something more subdued. "Even my people understand that there is a time and season for everything.."
Aika frowned. Her friend seemed so strong but even the smallest intimation of roughness in her words seemed tragic. It was not right that someone so beautiful needed to think of war. And yet, Fina was right; violence was a fact of their journey and for all the might on the Valuans' side, the Silvite was clearly starting to understand not all things would be solved with words.
"Sky's clear," Vyse noted, as no sign of the Chameleon could be found on the horizon. "If ever there was a moment to find your king and the Moon Crystal, this is it."
Tika'tika stepped up toward the helm and pointed downward to the unscorched jungle beyond the simmering land that the Chameleon had burned. There was plenty of the large island that remained verdant—Ixa'taka was too hearty for one ship to destroy—and though Vyse expect to perhaps see a small fort or even a castle woven into a large tree, he did not find anything befitting a king and narrowed his eyes in confusion as Tika'tika's finger drifted downward towards the jungle floor at a patch of land notable perhaps only for a few extra swirling leaves.
Fina immediately understood; her eyes didn't simply see whirling fronds but grasped the telltale signs of magicks and the star-sparkle signs of glimmer that only Silvites and those rare few on the surface like Xolin or Moon Gazer Kalifa could see. The trees weren't trees at all.
"Fly directly into that grove," Fina said with conviction. "Go slow but don't worry about hitting the ground."
"That's literally one of the most important things to worry about when sailing a ship," Vyse said nervously even as he began to turn the Little Jack as she instructed. The ship tilted downward; no turning back.
"If'n we end up w'even tha small'st scuff yer won't hear the end of it," Drachma warned with a growl.
For her own part Aika walked forward and peered at the jungle with a mixture of concern and hawk-eyed alertness. She looked at the leafy grove. "I don't think that's the ground," she said oddly.
"There's that touch of purple magick in you," Fina noted with a smile. "Look even closer at the trees now that we're drawing near. I can't show you what I see but…"
As the Little Jack dove towards the canopy, Aika felt a shiver down her spine and a chill in her breath. In her memory, it felt like the moment she consumed the moonberry on Sailor's Island as an irrefutable part of her very soul reacted to a flux of magickal energy. She gasped as she realized the trees were ever so transparent like those fake constructs within the Temple of Pyrynn. As solid as clouds.
"It's an illusion," she realized with an astounded chuckle. "Those trees aren't real! Is that purple magick..?"
Fina shook her head. "It's close," she explained. "And that spark within you can sense it."
Aika looked at Vyse. "Keep going."
He did. The Little Jack sank lower and lower until the bow touched the "trees" below and instead of running aground and shattering into pieces, the ship passed right through into a small underground passage that snaked further and further until it came upon a large hamlet isle hidden beneath the grounds above. Beams of green-touched light shone down on a sight not far removed from what Vyse had expected to see on the horizon above. Upon the secluded isle was a large tree; not so big as those which bore Horteka's web of homes but large enough that a sturdy longhouse—palatial enough for a king and what advisors he needed—rested in the boughs. It wasn't a castle but certainly a leader's hideaway.
"Our king confers with the high priests within this place," Tika'tika explained with some deference. "Although it rests beneath the earth, there is an energy here which guides his thoughts."
Fina could sense it. The tree itself was suffused in a lace of glimmer that shone before her eyes. The energy stretched outward and filled the entire refuge. "It's old magicks," she noted. "Whatever spells were woven here began centuries ago but.."
"The priests and others maintain them now," Tika'tika revealed. "Giving rise to the deception above."
"How was that sort of knowledge saved?" Fina asked. It was a question mostly for herself.
"Could be like your own people," Vyse suggested. "Folks surviving the Rains of Destruction that knew how to keep things going and passed it down the method until now."
It was a sensible enough explanation although Fina couldn't dare to correct that her own peoples' situation was radically different. There still were things that she hadn't told Vyse and Aika. There were truths about the Silvites and their survival that she had not told them the night they sailed away from Valua upon the Little Jack . Whatever the truth of the magicks in this place—if they were related to the Veridians who lived here in the ancient world or something else—they might never know the truth.
Tika'tika walked out to the deck as the Little Jack eased down towards a small dock and took berth without ceremony save for the relaying of a hand sign from the hunter to a lookout perched upon the longhouse's front terrace. The man, who wore a cat's mask, nodded before entering the building.
Vyse and the others disembarked with Tika'tika at the lead, all but Drachma looking at the hamlet with awe. It was as if their home on Pirate Isle had taken a new configuration and although it was not a proud castle standing high above in defiance of the Valuan invaders, there was no denying the inherent nobility of the large tree or the longhouse within the leaves. Vyse was about to speak up in appreciation when a soft hand touched his shoulder. It was Fina, who pulled him slightly to the side of the others.
Aika lifted an eyebrow and watched the pair shift away but kept her pace with Tika'tika. If Drachma seemed to care about the matter, he didn't show it at all. Vyse, for his part, was quite confused.
"What is it?" he asked quietly. "Is there something wrong?"
"You spoke with great conviction in Horteka," Fina offered with a soft and compliment-filled smile. "But I ask that you allow me to deal with the king.."
"Okay," Vyse agreed. "Though I get the feeling that's not all.."
"You made promises to Elder Xolin that were not yours to make," Fina explained with caution. "I will honor those words but my mission unchanged: I must see to the security of the Moon Crystals at all costs."
Vyse took a moment to consider the statement. "At all costs" was a phrase usually uttered by pirates in anticipation of great violence. Spoken from the wrong person, it implied far too many things. It implied a sword-red day and a boot upon the neck; it implied a conviction of steel which all too often had set the course of history down tortuous paths. But when Fina said it, he immediately understood that she did not mean "at all costs to those in my way" but rather "at all costs to myself." There was not a piece of herself that she would not give to the world in order to keep it safe and while she clearly valued upholding the edicts of her elders, Vyse had seen the strength in her eyes as she'd given orders in Horteka.
He saw it again here. Firm and true and fixed upon him.
The young man nodded but was left with a question. "What if the king refuses to help?"
"Then the crystal will remain under the Green Moon as you've promised and I will weave the strongest magicks possible to lock it away. Ward neither they nor the Valuans could ever hope to break. I would labor for a day or a week or even a month straight. I would bend every particle of glimmer I could muster until the greatest truth in the world is the fact that the crystal is untouchable."
Vyse chuckled at the audacity of it all but still found some shame in the words. She wasn't scolding him but she was impressing upon him the depth of her convictions. "I know you would."
"You're my friend," she said with deep appreciation for the word. "I would never make a liar out of you."
"But I still spoke on your behalf and I shouldn't have.."
"I trust you," Fina replied sweetly. "So trust me with this. I can handle it."
He reached out and clapped her shoulder, letting his thumb linger long enough to stroke it without realizing that he had done so. It brought color to Fina's face and the two of them eased back to the group as they prepared to follow a twisting walkway up and into the longhouse. Aika slinked over to the pair and cleared her throat. If no one else was going to ask, she certainly would.
"Am I not part of the cool kids club?" she asked leadingly with the slightest hint of wounded pride. "Not allowed to run off and whisper?"
Fina tilted her head. "Cool?"
Vyse swooped in before Aika could sit Fina down for a lesson in slang. "You're very cool," he said with a tousle of his friend's hair. "Fina wanted to make sure I didn't rush us into more promises."
Aika sighed. "Oh, thank the Moons," she offered with relief. "Means I won't have to say it now."
"What?"
It was his turn to receive a clap to the shoulder. An affectionate slap as Aika leaned in with a smirk.
"S'fine for Fina to take lead time to time," she noted. Seein' as she has all the historical knowledge and such. Ship doesn't sail thanks only to the captain, right?"
Vyse grinned as the group reached the doorway inside the longhouse. "Take the lead, Fina."
Having "Quetya" at the head of the group made for a powerful impression as they proceeded inside. They were a motley crew—foreign warriors, a man with an arm steely as a Valua ship, one lone Hortekan hunter, and a white-clad goddess—but somehow possessed the true grace of visiting dignitaries with Fina walking before anyone else. The makeshift palace, such as it was, held lanterns of soft green light that nearly emulated the effect of sun pouring through fresh leaves. Attendants worked at a few different duties including the writing of secretive missive and scribbles that seemed to be instructions for nascent pockets of resistance. Others sharpened weapons or sorted through food supplies. None wore a mask save for a finely dressed man in a yellow-accented robe bearing a striking purple-painted wooden "face" that was no face at all. It was merely flat wood with gaping eye holes so dark as to hide his gaze entirely.
At his side was a middle-aged man sitting in a large chair that avoided the description of "throne" for its plain simplicity. There was no affectation to it and if placed in the corner of some tavern, it might have eluded notice save for the fine quality of the wood. In spite of that modesty, the man sitting on it was undoubtedly the Ixa'takan king. A striking headpiece with two long horns of unknown animal origin resided on his head as a crown under which rested a length of shimmering hunter green hair that framed a determined face worn down through years of worry and the weight of authority. His deep red eyes scanned the group with curiosity before settling on Fina and narrowing as if seeing a lost relative.
Whatever he saw in "Quetya" did not last, as he turned to his masked attendant and gave a nod that sent him turning on heel and walking out of the longhouse. In his haste, he nearly bumped into the other individual resting near the throne: an exceptionally tall woman perhaps only a few years older than Vyse with long white hair and eyes only somewhat less crimson than her king. She wore a sheer green wrap revealing her toned body, which was only properly covered in choice places to reserve some modesty. A light rippling of yellow cloth was wrapped around her wrist. It was a dancer's costume though she bore one item that gave it edge: a green moonstone dagger held to one of her thighs in a suggestive sheathe above which rested the hand painted image of a bird in resplendent red dye. She paused with annoyance mid-conversation as her king ignored her words, turning to look at the group in confusion.
"So there really are visitors from the eastern skies," the king mused with apprehension. "Our scouts spotted a ship resting in Horteka which drifted from the distant clouds. But I did not expect…"
Fina took a step forward. "Me," she finished. "Though I hear you've seen me before."
The king frowned. "In a vision," he admitted. "A woman in white with cornsilk hair and the flicker of magick in her blood. It was Quetya and yet.."
"Ask," Fina encouraged. Vyse raised an eyebrow but said nothing. She was being forward for a reason.
"Are you her?"
Fina shook her head before making a more formal bow to the king. "My name is Fina," she introduced solemnly. "I am a messenger of the Silvite people here on a mission to retrieve this land's Moon Crystal."
The directness gave the kin pause for a moment before he returned Fina's bow with a curt nod.
"I am Cuitláhuac," the man said proudly. "God-sent or not, you are welcome to these lands. Am I correct to say that you drove off the fire-breathing ship in the skies above?"
"With the help of our guide from Horteka," Fina confirmed with a gesture towards Tika'tika.
"Xolin's scout," Cuitláhuac noted with a smile. "You aided in the battle?"
Tika'tika smirked arrogantly beneath his mark before speaking. "I did."
The king's attention turned back to Fina. "You ask for me to give you our sacred stone but I cannot."
Vyse finally broke his silence. "We've recovered one from the Valuans already," he informed the older man. "They tried to use its power and will try again here if they find the green crystal."
Fina looked at Vyse. "He doesn't have it," she said with confidence.
All eyes turned upon the king who shrugged defeatedly. "I do not," he revealed plainly. "If you knew this, then I must imagine your question is of a different sort than asking me to hand it over here and now."
"I need to know where I can find Rixis," Fina replied. The king sighed but said nothing else.
Aika stirred at Fina's side, leaning closer like a cat sliding through a half closed door. Even with Cupil's recent foray into her mind, she had no knowledge of any place called "Rixis."
"What's that? A temple like in Nasr?"
The white-haired woman finally spoke, having stood on the sidelines long enough. There was frustration etched on her face but it seemed reserved only for the king as her gaze softened when it fell upon the strangers before her.
"It is the capital of the Old World," she said bluntly. "City of Those Who Came Before. We call it 'City of Mist' in songs and weave tales of streets lined with gold and silver."
Aika immediately perked up, shaking with all the excitement of an overstuffed moonstone engine. She darted back and forth between Vyse and Fina. "Gold?! Let's go! Let's go! Let's go!"
The dancer laughed heartily. "This one does not lack enthusiasm. But who are you people?"
The focus fell upon Vyse as even the king took interest in his answer. "We're Fina's friends," he said firmly. "Pirates who steal from Valua but now protect her as she seeks the crystals."
"Pirates…" the white-haired woman intoned. "You are warriors!"
King Cuitláhuac raised a cautious hand. "It is not what you think, Merida.."
"It is!" the woman replied with a sudden light in her eyes. "I come here pleading for you to give the word for us to finally rise… and warriors arrive with Quetya! The prayer I sent into the sky was answered!"
"Please send warriors to help us fight against the evil," Vyse whispered in recognition. His hand was already moving into his pocket where it fished around until he found what he was looking for.
He produced a small piece of paper, bearing a script he could not read but whose words he knew. It seemed like centuries ago when Pinta had squinted close at the words and discerned their meaning in a rippling of Moonberry-induced clarity. Vyse held the scrawlin out to Merida, who snatched it from him.
" I placed this in a bottle," she said with quivering amazement. "How far did it travel?"
Aika shook her head as if to awaken from a dream. "All the way to land under another moon," she explained with a smile. "We found it on an island under the Silver Moon. Leagues and leagues from here."
Merida pointed firmly at the group while locking her eyes on Cuitláhuac. All her anger was replaced with excitement. The fire in her, which had burned in resentment, now leapt for joy.
"It has started!" Merida half-shouted in joy. "Long have I danced for my people, lifting their spirits for the day of our liberation! The land will heal! Chains will be broken!"
Vyse and Fina exchanged a nervous glance before she nodded at her friend. "As much as I would love that, we need to find the crystal before we can even think about something that big.."
"Everything would be lost if the Valuans find it first," Fina said to the king. He hesitated for a moment.
"I cannot tell you where Rixis is," Cuitláhuac pronounced. "For even that is not known to me. The only soul under this moon who knows is Isapa, the highest of our priests."
Aika tilted her head. "Where can we find him?"
Tika'tika frowned. "If he is not here already.."
Cuitláhuac nodded solemnly. "He was captured not more than three suns ago," the king explained with pain in his voice. "Taken to the mines that the Ironheads have snaked into our sacred mountain."
"Like in Doc's story," Fina lamented. "If he's the only one who knows where to find Rixis.."
Vyse grinned. "We bust him out," he said without missing a beat. "Save him and figure out where we can find the crystal before figuring out the rest."
Drachma finally stirred with a plodding step as he approached Vyse. "What daft'ness yer been blatherin' about?" he asked, only having half-followed the conversation without the aid of Cupil's translation.
Fina thought about the matter before standing taller. "We're going to rescue one of their priests from the Valuan mine," she announced without any doubt.
The old fisherman paused a moment in an attempt to affect displeasure before the slightest of smiles tugged at his mouth. "Ain't 'ta simple thing," he concluded. "But iff'n ye think it's the only course.."
"We'll save him," Fina assured Cuitláhuac as her voice slipped back into the Ixa'takan tongue. "We'll rescue him and return him to you here. In exchange, he must tell me where to find Rixis."
"You would risk your lives to save Isapa?" the king marveled. "Even your friends from the East?"
Vyse gave the king a thumbs up, which the older man mirrored with some confusion. It was a strange enough circumstance that the pirate suppressed his laughter for a moment before speaking.
"If that's what it takes for Fina to complete her mission," he answered with a confidence that made him seem nearly equal with the king before him in rearing. "Then we'll get it done."
Cuitláhuac responded with a wistful smile. "Do this, and I will ensure Isapa shows you the path to Rixis."
"I will go too!" Merida spoke as if it was a fact instead of a request. "By day, I dance in our rituals and entertain the people. By night, I have trained my body for this moment. To face the Ironheads."
For years, Merida had assuaged her people's pain through dance and song. In another life where the Ixa'takans traveled more freely, she might've already been a famous performer in a thriving port town bringing smiles to the entire world. The Valuans choked that dream and countless others, hoping to lock those aspirations away until the Ixa'takans hope withered like unpicked fruit on a vine. Instead, and in spite of all the loss, all their cruelty had done was drive the woman's desire to fight and serve. There was a time and place for dance and the arts; they could keep hearts burning in dark times. But eventually the dance must end and the kindled hearts must act. Whatever King Cuitláhuac might've been building in the shadows of Valuan occupation was still hidden in shadows and waiting for some perfect day to act.
It seemed to Merida that there was no more time to waste. The Valuans would burn the land over and over until everything was reduced to black. They would grind her friends and family into the mill of their great machines and work them in cold caves until their bones broke not from a firm strike but mere exhaustion and overuse. The skies had been darkened for much of her adult life and when she could not bear it further and cast her prayers upon the wind, she had been rewarded. Because d reams do sail in the direction of hope and whatever the truth of the world, be it gods or simply the energy of our souls, dream can never be extinguished even if Imperial boots stomped one thousand times in an attempt to snuff the candle of their beauty. Bodies would break and spirits sink but so long as a single prayer reached the winds, there was a chance for good to triumph over evil. And yet dreams are nothing without the strength to make them so. Merida had seen plenty of her elders die waiting for the day their dream of freedom was a reality. She was not content to wait. If Quetya willed it, she would offer her dagger in service and fight whatever battle was demanded of her. If Quetya wiled it..
Her crimson eyes stared intensely at Fina. "Please," she whispered.
All was silent for a time as Fina looked the Ixatakan up and down. Her vision danced with flickerings of glimmer, evergreen and sure. Eventually, the Silvite nodded. "I would gladly welcome your aid."
"Then I will go as well," Tika'tika insisted with a jittering cluck motion of his head. "The mountain is a den of Ironheads and their strange machines. None who enter have ever left. So long as my arm can draw the string, you will have my bow. Be it needed to find Isapa or your crystal or more.."
Drachma gave a dramatic huff. "I ain't even speak a word o' 'takan 'an I ken tell what they're jabbering 'bout."
Color rushed to Fina's face, turning it a simmering scarlet. It didn't matter if she was "Quetya" and no amount of practice in the world could stop her from feeling nervous when confronted with a surly metal-armed sea dog annoyed about too many hands on his ship. Her hand shifted behind her back and fingers linked, playing haphazardly with each other as she regarded the captain.
"I just thought… Well…"
The old man rolled his good eye. "Quit thinkin' then," he shot back. "Because each damn second we're wastin' here is one we might be scuffin' up the Valuans and findin' yer magick'd rock.."
Vyse chuckled, regarding the captain with overwhelming mischief. "You sayin' what I think?"
"Aye," came the reply. "We gots a prisoner t'save.."
Seven years had passed since the Valuans swooped into Ixa'taka and claimed swathes of the Green Continent. The conquest included numerous villages and cities resting on island edges. Within a handful of months, First Fleet Admiral Galcian had turned the lands under the Green Moon into Valua's plaything. The Ixa'takans put up an admirable fight and continued to strike at the Empire for years but over time those attacks died down as it became clear that only the most powerful mage collectives could take down the mighty steel ships that choked the skies. When the Valuans claimed the Ixa'takan's most holy mountain, once the site of pilgrimages where penitent souls could wander the twinkling moonstone caves in search of the gods' forgiveness, the flag of empire was firmly planted. The remaining peoples resisted in secret, retreating the populations inland and ensuring the protection of holy sites. Supply lines were set up and insurgents armed under the direction of King Cuitláhuac but the effort never coalesced as many hoped. "Moonstone Mountain" remained a prison all the while, the walls strip-minded through slave labor.
The towering peak rested south of Horteka, the mountaintop threatening to spike into Upper Sky. Even if Vyse didn't have Merida and Tika'tika's guidance, he would have easily sailed the Little Jack to the proper location. The mountain's raw scale made it impossible to tuck into some hidden portion of the continent and even if that were the case, Fina perceived the mass of peoples further beyond Horteka and the other villages. Valua's crime was too big to hide and that suited their purposes fine. Better than people look to the horizon and see their potential prison than see the freedom teased in clear blue skies.
Vyse had expected a need to slip past patrol ships or even some type of blockade as they drew closer to the mines but there was nothing at all. The Little Jack streamed easily through the sky and up toward a small jetty near the higher points of the mountain resting on a pathway leading towards a cave entrance that, to the shock of everyone, Tika'tika announced that he saw no sign of guards posted along the way.
"It doesn't make any sense," Aika groaned as everyone walked cautiously up the stone-strewn dirt path closer and closer toward the cave entrance. "Here I go expecting a fight and…? Nothing!"
Drachma ambled towards the cliffside and tilted his head, listening close as the telltale signs of engine spinnings and hammerfalls carried through the clouds. "Main dock must be down there.."
"Doesn't explain there bein' no guards!" Aika countered.
Fina gave it thought as Cupil twirled ahead of the group. "Maybe the Valuans don't think they need them?"
It seemed as good an explanation as any and Vyse was ready to accept it as truth when the sharp scratching of moonstone grinding against metal rang out from the path ahead as a man's voice cried out in pain. The struggle continued for a moment before the familiar sound of Valuan armor crumpling to the ground popped from around the corner. Vyse drew his cutlasses and ran forward, Aika and Merida close at his side. As he rounded the corner, there was only a moment to duck as the thrust of a spear lashed out by his cheek, almost rending a new scar. There was a blurred motion as he saw a red-headed woman—no that wasn't Aika—leap back and away from any retaliatory strike he could muster. His eyes caught a fallen Valuan guard in the dirt and looked upward to find the woman standing before it with her weapon at the ready. Even as the rest of the group drew in, she seemed ready to strike all.
"An Ixa'ness?!" Tika'tika realized in confusion as he drew his bow and aimed at the woman.
She looked about the same age as Merida, with a shock of red hair pulled back into a ponytail. One a few strands fell down across her eyes, which were as deep red as the Ixa'takan woman at Vyse's side. Her clothing—undyed white shorts and a top with blue tracings throughout—almost looked like something Fina would wear although they were clearly the garb of a warrior and not a priestess. The woman looked out at the group, a scowl etched upon her face that seemed all the more dangerous for shocks of white face paint including a circular mark upon her forehead which again invited similarities to Fina's own tattoo.
Vyse could see her hand tighten on the grip of her green moonstone spear. He braced for a fight.
"Tara?" Merida called out at his side and the other woman relaxed ever so slightly.
"Merida?" the reply came, an alto voice touched with confusion and the uniquely nervous pitch-shift of someone fearing a great betrayal. "What are you doing here?"
"What are you doing here?"
"Friend of yours?" Aika asked, all too eager to let loose and hurl her boomerang.
"We are from the same village," Merida explained simply. There was the barest hint of affection.
"You left years ago!" the warrior-woman sniped back. "You are not one of us!"
"One of us?" Vyse asked. He did not lower his weapons yet.
"It is as Tika'tika said,'' Merida offered with a nod towards the hunter. "I was born among the Ixa'ness.."
"A village of women," Tika'tika said with a touch of awe. "They prey on men from other villages twice every year in order to preserve their numbers.."
"My father took me from the village when I was young," Merida explained. "Tara was a friend."
"You have not answered me," Tara sniped although she at least made the effort to lower her spear slightly.
"We are here seeking a priest that was taken," Merida answered. "These people seek to stymie the Ironheads and he is the key to their plans."
Tara finally lowered her spear. Her expression betrayed confusion but it was enough to know that the foreigners at Merida's side were at least nominally opposed to the Ironheads. As it shedding a layer of armor, she allowed a frown to mar her face with worry as her eyes remained fixed on Merida.
"They have taken my younger sisters," the Ixa'ness explained with a nod towards the entrance to the mines. "Yesterday, as I was teaching them to sail the winds. I cannot rest until they are free."
Only Tika'tika seemed to remain on his guard once Tara stopped brandishing her weapon. He stared at the woman with an intense worry that not even his mask could hide. "We must still be wary.."
"If she's here to break someone else out," Aika began. "Maybe we can help each other. Right, Fina?"
Fina didn't hear her. She hardly felt the physical world around her at all. There was no difference between noise and sound. There was no difference between time and space. All was an echoing chasm of anguish and sputtering stars. The catch of every heart in the mines sent a shock through her body and drew her closer to the entrance. She felt the cracking of whips and other instruments rip at her back, tasted the dying flesh where yellow magicks met with her skin, and saw as the cave entrance before her opened up into two impossible cruel spaces layers on top of each other. There was the world her normal senses, framing a picture she had anticipated but could never have prepared for. Tears burned in her eyes.
As she walked away from her friends, Aika's voice a meaningless echo and Vyse's touch the lightest dot of solace in a world of pain, she watched in terror as she stepped closer to a massive chamber, the hollow extending deep into the mountain below, packed with leg-chained workers working the mines. Some had the luxury of tools but many were left to claw at stones and attempt to fruitlessly wrench them from the wall. Those unfit to work were wrangled into massive cages. It was worse than any turn of phrase Doctor Ortega conjured during his tale of the Valuan's early conquest. Unchecked barbarism that left none unscarred. Her mind touched every soul in the chamber and she heard the thoughts of hundreds of desperate people holding tight to something, anything that could get them to live one more day.
There was a father who dared dream of seeing his daughter again. There was a true believer in the gods trying to fit everything into some divine plan. There was a young girl who tricked herself into believing she would taste cacao nibs again. There was an experienced leader counting guards and planning potential escapes. Everyone had something they believed in. Everyone had a desperate dream wrapped around their heart. And she felt it all.
Their wounds. Their dreams. Their tears. Their blood.
Beneath it all was the Weave. The odd merger of souls and glimmer and life and death spun about as the senses beyond her senses ran cold with fresh deaths and mounting sorrow. She was staring at a night sky where the lights cut out without warning. One, two. More than she ever wanted to feel. More than she could bear to feel. It was too loud. It was too quiet. Every moment was an un-squarable contradiction.
Vyse's hand was on her shoulder. She felt the warmth and followed it back to the real world where none of her friends nor their allies or the Ixa'ness they stumbled upon spoke. They simply stood and saw their enemy in a new context. The fine line between awareness and knowing had been crossed.
Fina found herself, unsure of how long they'd been staring or what words were said in the time she'd faded from the world. It could have been seconds but it might've been an hour but it didn't matter. Every moment they stood here was another where someone in the mines toiled in pain.
Suddenly, the Green Moon Crystal seemed unimportant. Which it was. If only at this moment.
"We're not only rescuing Isapa," she declared. "We're breaking every chain in this mountain."