>>6119243# # # # # #
Sandora Mirari sits on her usual spot, right on ship’s bow, reading a list of Maduan family names, when she feels it. Perhaps it’s instinct, perhaps it’s something else. Powers that run through her body and her soul, waking up from their slumber as threat raises its ugly head.
“What the…” the blonde mutters, leaving the book on the chair and looking past the empty miles of open sea, towards the Maduan coast, barely visible from there as a thin white and green line. There is something… like a humming vibration going through the air, running to a fever pitch.
It doesn’t make any sense.
Why would Carnaval invite her here on a <span class="mu-i">diplomatic</span> mission just to fire a fucking <span class="mu-i">Eye of the Sun</span> on her vessel?
“Stars conserve us,” she whispers, looking at the horizon, waiting for the flash.
If it’s really aimed at them, it’s too late for anything else.
# # # # # #
You reach the upper chamber, panting slightly from carrying Soralisa all the way.
“Well, now I’m jealous,” Willow smirks, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It was just… a way to get here sooner,” you reply. She just clicks her tongue.
“You owe me a sparring session, just for that.”
“Yeah, yeah, fantastic, girls, lovely. You are both pretty. Now put these on if you care about still having functioning eyes,” Rubida scoffs as Soralisa touches the floor once again. She gives you a rounded piece of black glass. You can faintly see through it, so it’s not blindglass, probably just some smoked surfaced the uninitiated use to approach the inner parts of the Temple.
As you strap the piece of glass on your head, making sure not to take off your hood, every light disappears.
“Ah—” you hesitate as your eyes slowly adjust. You can still see, very faintly, the sun and the sky ring. It reminds you of the Crimson Days during which the sun is veiled, but this is much darker. Then, the humming sound grows once again in intensity, to the point the entire structure of the Temple’s tower, reaching out far in the sky, seems to tremble and shake. The thrumming reaches your bones, and it grows and grows… turning your head to the very top of the tower, you see something you did not expect.
The tip of the tower is starting to open.
[cont.]
