Hazy Periphery『 Ryees x Aiko 』

[Ryees]

Three sets of footsteps plodded lazily down the wooden platforms that formed the under terrace of the once-small fishing village of Cor'Agaren. Above, the city hustled and bustled, hundreds of people flowing through the city proper for all manner of trade, commerce, and commute. The undercity was used mostly for maintenance and transfer of goods, some sections of the gangplanks bearing metal tracks into which heavy carts could seat and lock for easy movement of heavy items.

Today, though, it was only the maintenance folk that had any need to be in the undercity.

Their three bodies silently tumbled into the river, lifeless.

Three dark-clothed figures climbed out from under the docks, soft leather boots padding softly over the wood after they lifted the keyrings—and coins—from the men's pouches. The maintenance door's lock clicked open and they moved inside the storage room.

Cor'Agaren was a small town but a few short months prior. When a fishing vessel had discovered metallic flakes within the bellies of their hauls, the river had been searched to find rich, deep-running deposits of the rune-mineral hestralite, the base material required to forge and craft Glyphs without a human element to power them. From powering simple machines to renewing the vitality of horses on the road, hestralite glyphs were the only way for the unstudied to tap into the magical power they offered.

This shadow and his two companions, though, were not unstudied. They only took a moment to survey the room; its low ceiling and hundred-meter-square size made it feel cavernous and claustrophobic, as if the city would come crumbling down on top of them at any moment. After a shared glance and a nod, they set about their work with urgency and efficiency. The young-looking, lithe-framed woman with blue eyes and a field of freckles on her cheeks slowly closed the door behind them and pulled a palm-sized square stone from her pocket.

Three inches across and perfectly square, the Glyph was made of a blue-gray stone, polished smooth and bearing a masterfully carved symbol on its face. The etching process for Glyphs was intricate and precarious, hestralite's penchant for cracking giving many smiths around the world head- and heartaches every time they chipped one of the enormously expensive tiles. This one was her own making. She pressed it to the door with one hand and deftly traced the pattern on its surface with a finger of the other, a red glow igniting the symbol in a shimmering light. When she pulled her hand away, the rune stuck, and after a crackling hiss, several lattices of black-red energy spidered out and anchored into the stone of the walls.

The taller of the two men, with that same dark hair and ocean-blue eyes, took to the far right wall, to the rows of crates organized in their neat stacks. He pulled a heavy, thick-bladed knife free from the sheath on his thigh and started prying into the first of them. The nails strained and groaned against the force, but he used his height and weight as leverage to smoothly rip them free.

The last of them, with that same dark hair but the sharpest eyes of the three, flitted to the desk set against the left wall, flipping open the heavy ring-bound leather book and pulling the shortsword from the loop on his belt to lay on the table. He began turning pages, searching.

Nitani turned his head from the box, seemingly happy about what he had seen but with no indication of it on his face. "What's th'word, Axe?" he questioned, deep voice echoing dimly in the depths of the storeroom. "They look good fr'mwhat I'm seein, but're they authentic?"

Anmillaen—Axe, per the shortened version of his very long family name—nodded slowly without turning his head, still flipping pages. He droned a slow, "They... look good," in his quiet alto, his nods turning more vigorous as pages fell. "Yes. They're real. All the trade routes check out, the raw slates all have ledgers that point here."

Beillahn pumped her fist and hopped in place. Even at her diminutive height, her head almost touched the ceiling. "Yes! Gods, yes, look't Ani there must be a half-thousand crates down'ere, this is a capital's gold worth o'plates!"

His sister's garish enthusiasm never failed to bring a grin to Anmillaen's face, and he nodded in spite of the childish nickname she had refused to drop since childhood. "Take a crate. The rest go."

Anmillaen and Beillahn strode over to the crates. The open box, the three of them roughly slid aside, pulling a sealed box away from the wall enough for Beillahn to slip in between it and the stone. She fastened a Glyph to that side of the box while Anmillaen and Nitani handled the front and sides. She slipped up and slapped one on top, then sidled out from behind the box. Anmillaen and Axe squatted down, nodding in time with each other before thunderously hauling upwards. The crate, filled with thousands of carved stone tablets, barely lifted a hand's span off the floor, and the two strained audibly.

Beillahn's hand darted in and out of that liminal space, depositing a Glyph facedown on the stone. "Got it!" she called, and the crate thunked back down, the men huffing a series of labored breaths. While they recovered, she knelt down in front of the Glyph faceted to the front of the crate. Six runes adorned its face and she traced them two at a time, one set with her index finger and one with her middle. Blue and white lit up the symbols in pairs, and on the other facets of the box, those runes lit in kind as if ghostly fingers were tracing their paths as well. When she finished, the Glyphs all flashed at once, and a hair-thin string of white light flickered out and connected them at the flats.

Beillahn stood and popped up onto her tiptoes to put her hand on the sigil on top. Carefully, she began to press down. The cords connecting the runes contracted, and in scale, the box began to shrink. Her feet flattened to the ground and she moved faster, pressing down until the Glyphs finally met, connecting at the corners with a satisfying, arcane click!

Her heaving sigh of relief was punctuated by a tinkling, self-satisfied giggle. "I know we tested'm for hours but m'still so glad they worked on the hestralite!" She lifted the now-palm-sized box and pulled her pack off her back, carefully stowing it inside. "I'ws worried that the properties a'the plates'd stop them from compressin'. I guess they really don'have any properties until they're carved, then."

Anmillaen and Nitani both sported satisfied grins as they moved about the room, a stack of Glyphs in each of their hands that they haphazardly slapped onto the tops of crates, tracing the very simple patterns on them with the same familiarity, of the not the same ingenious proficiency, Belliahn had. The blood-dark red on those runes cast a sinister glow on the ceiling.

Warning. Six. One platform over.

Anmillaen's ears perked and he froze. "Muniin says we're not alone." He let his eyes flutter, the telltale blue-white glow of summon-sight clouding his eyes. From the top of a bridge post, he saw them, six men, weapons drawn, jogging down the wooden stairs two streets over. The hazy, smoke-like vision of summon-sight saw them disappear into the underterrace. They were undoubtedly heading this way.

Their pace tripled in an instant. Nitani set his remaining six Glyphs on the ground and Anmillaen followed suit beside him, the pair tracing their patterns hastily and sliding them into the depths of the storeroom. Like red-glowing mice, they skittered through the room, sliding under boxes and tumbling into corners, speckling the darkness with glowing red bubbles like demon eyes in the night.

Beillahn had already moved to the door and tapped her Glyph to release the energy, catching it and smoothly sliding it into its snug slot on the leather bound Glyphcase on her belt. She pulled its neighbor out, bearing two lines of symbols. The top was a set of activator runes, while the bottom line was simply the same symbol from the stack that Anmillaen and Nitani had scattered, repeated once for each Glyph and currently dimly aglow in red. Beillahn traced the first of the two activator smybols and held it out in front of her, facedown. A scattering of red marbles cascaded out of its face, hitting the floor and scurrying off into the darkness as each one sought its home Glyph. By the time they had all disappeared into the darkness, Anmillaen had retrieved his sword and he and his brother had skirted past Beillahn to exit the room.

She slipped out herself and closed the door behind her. They shared one final resolute glance, and nodded in unison. Beillahn's delicate fingers lit on the Glyph one last time, lighting the second symbol in gold.

---

With a grumble like the too-close sound of thunder, the trade square of Cor'Agaren began to shake. The shaking lasted only a moment. Gouts of blood-red fire erupted from the ground, jettisoning three times a man's height before expanding into a dome. Some fifty geysers ripped the ground of the square to shreds, then, like a great inhalation, sucked back downwards. They bubbled for a moment, then exploded upwards.

In a horrific blaze of black-red flames, the market square exploded. Shops and stands collapsed into the earth; statues and sign posts were blasted to fragmented stone dust; and the border buildings on the square, with their foundations cut in half, started to tumble into the chasm. Where they had exploded, the Glyph bombs had left ten-meter wide pools of roiling, inky magma, and with the volume of them, it seemed the entire square had been consumed by a volcanic god's sudden, unexpected rage. Man and material alike, where they had not been obliterated by the initial explosions, tumbled down the wreckage-ramp into those hungry, waiting pools.

---

The screams and shockwave were viscerally audible to the trio as they tore down the pathway, opposite the direction Anmillaen's crow had alerted them of guards. Nitani led the pack, his long legs carrying him in easy strides and eating the distance. He plotted their course, stopping a span ahead of the other two at every juncture, whipping his head around, and pointing, before taking off once more.

The three of them ripped up the stair case and into the village proper, three black-clothed shadows skittering through the back alleys of the village. As they ran, Anmillaen's mind tingled, and he extended an arm out to one side as they all paused a junction in the alley way for Nitani to navigate. Muniin soared in from the rooftop, lighting on Anmillaen's arm. After a brief head pat, Anmillaen touched the Glyph embedded in the crow's breastbone and the glowing symbol upon it began to retract. In a shower of white sparks, the bird vanished, and Anmillaen slipped the stone into his Glyphcase.

"AXE, WE HAVE—" Nitani's baritone warning was cut off at the sound of steel meeting steel. Anmillaen and Beillahn took the last few steps to round the alley corner just in time to Anmillaen stumble backwards, and turn, sprinting back towards his siblings. The alleyway was blocked by six guardsmen in their heavy gambesons, two brandishing long man-catchers, three with their two-handed broadswords drawn, and one last with a flintlock rifle at his shoulder.

Anmillaen's tongue clicked in irritation and he smoothly unclipped his Glyphcase, pulling the tablet free and tracing the jagged dragon-shaped pattern in a blink before slapping it against the stone alley wall. Its pattern glowed, flickered...


...and sparked blue-hot as a rifle ball blasted against its surface, forcing Anmillaen to whip his face away to not get peppered in hot, fragmented lead. Hestralite was an astonishingly durable stone, as a whole, able to with stand immense pressure and impact force with ease but being fairly prone to sharp cuts. And, it had a very well-known reputation for, when inscribed incorrectly, reacting very violently and unpredictably.

The Glyph had remained intact. But that bullet had fractured off the bottom half of the pattern. And everyone in the alley saw it.

"YOU BLOOD-BRINED FOOL!" the guard captain bellowed, taking a few stumbling, horrified steps backwards before finally turning on his heel and bolting around the corner. The guards scattered in much the same fashion. From where they stood, it took them but a moment to vacate the alleyway.

Anmillaen and his entourage, though, were too close. The Glyph's symbol flickered, but its energy was already moving. Hollow feelings crept into their three stomachs as their eyes fixated on the Glyph, frozen to stillness as they watched the fuse burn out on their deaths.

 

[Aiko-Nao]

In the dim light of the campus library, Hikari sat hunched over a sea of textbooks and notes, her wavy brown hair casting shadows over the pages below. The quiet murmur of fellow students served as a backdrop to her focused silence, a stark contrast to the turmoil churning within her. Her latest grade, a glaring red mark at the top of her returned essay, felt like a weight dragging her spirits down. The professor's comments were curt, dismissive of the effort she had poured into the work. Hikari's dark brown eyes, usually bright with curiosity and determination, flickered with the sting of disappointment. Her fair skin, a soft canvas to her Asian heritage, flushed with frustration, and the dimple on her cheek, typically a sign of her joyful laughter, now lay hidden in the absence of smiles. For a moment, she allowed herself to feel small, her petite body shrinking further into the chair.

Across the table, a sympathetic friend offered words of consolation, but they felt hollow. "You can talk to the professor, Hikari. There's always a way to fix this," her friend suggested, her voice a gentle nudge towards action.

Hikari nodded absently, gathering her courage along with her books before glancing up at her friend. "I guess... I'll go talk to him, but maybe he's right. I mean, I put so much effort into this, but maybe it simply wasn't good enough," she sighed, a troubled frown creasing her typically sweet face, a face that made others underestimate a tenacious resolve that lay mostly dormant within her. Standing, she adjusted her bag on her shoulder, its weight a tangible reminder of her responsibilities. The trek to the professor's office was a silent one, her steps echoing her deepening worry as other students past by her all happy and carefree. A pang of anger flared within the college girl—why do others' happiness bother you when you're feeling miserable? she thought to herself curiously.

Upon arrival, the conversation was brief and far from comforting. The professor, peering over spectacles perched precariously on his nose, dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. "Academic rigor, Miss Hikari. It's not meant to be easy," he chided, turning back to his computer with an air of finality.
Defeated, Hikari mumbled "Thank you sir," as she stepped out into the sunlit quad, the brightness outside doing little to dispel the gloom within. As she made her way back, pondering her next steps, the world around her seemed to pause. The air vibrated with an unrecognizable energy, a hum that slowly grew louder, resonating with a frequency that seemed to call out to her very essence.

And then, it happened.

A blinding light enveloped her, the sounds of the campus fading into a silence so deep it roared in her ears. Her surroundings melted away, as if someone taking a lighter to a photograph of her life. The sensation of being pulled, stretched thin across realities, was both terrifying and exhilarating. Her bag slipped from her shoulder, spilling its contents unceremoniously onto the ground that no longer existed beneath her feet.

In an instant, the light dimmed, and Hikari found herself standing in a world unlike any she had ever known. The ground shook with the aftermath of an explosion, the air filled with the scent of magic and chaos. Before her stood three figures, their expressions mirroring her own shock and confusion. The scene was catastrophic, a stark departure from the quiet despair of her academic woes. Around them, buildings leaned precariously, and the ground was marred by pools of inky magma.

The trio—a lithe woman with freckles and two men, one tall and the other with piercing eyes—all wore dark clothes that seemed to absorb the light. They stared at Hikari, their previous actions halted by her sudden appearance. For a moment, time stood still, the aftermath of their actions paused in the face of this unexpected newcomer.

Hikari, with her heart racing, could only stare back, her mind grappling with the impossible. The contrast between her mundane life and this fantastical chaos was as stark as night and day. The realization of her new reality crashed into her like a wave, leaving her breathless and on the edge of panic.

"H-Hello?" she croaked out.

 

[Ryees]

Their eyes all squeezed shut as the Glyph pulsed one last time, energy sucking into its surface like a great inhalation. Its surface darkened and released a burst of energy.

"H-Hello?"

Hikari found herself at the intersection of two cross alleys on a well-kept medieval town path spanning four directions away from her. Plaster walls and wood-thatch rooftops were the standard as far down the streets as she could see, and the cobblestone under her feet was dense and hearty. Her anachronistic clothes stood out starkly in the environment, and in that realization, she would notice perhaps the largest oddity of it all: She could feel the edges of a smooth-hewn stone set into the center of her sternum, nearly flush with her skin and glowing with a gentle blue light. Her awareness of that stone was keen, and intimate, and through it she could feel a reflex that somehow felt both natural and foreign at the same time, as if a friend were perched at the other end of a cup-string phone.

Only Nitani opened his eyes, Anmillaen and Beillahn having turned their heads aside and tucked their chins into their chests. "A...A-Axe, how did... you..."

Anmillaen's ears perked at the very distinct way that Nitani did not sound terribly dead. His eyes flickered open and he looked to the wall where the Glyph had hung. The residue of a summoning lingered in the air, certainly, and the Glyph had jettisoned from the wall just as it was intended to. But if that was the case...

The girl who stood before them visibly, and loudly, baffled the insurgents. Beillahn's mouth hung agape, her eyes blankly staring. She knew everything that was possible with Glyphs—human summoning was not on that list. It had been outlawed in the earliest days of study on hestralite when the few experiments that had been conducted elicited a one-hundred percent death rate of the target attempting to be Glyphed. Since then, the taboo was spoken of only ever in jest; mothers would tell their unruly children that they would Glyph-bind them if they did not behave, or a teacher would ask their disobedient student if they would prefer to be Glyphbound to force them to study.

Anmillaen had been expecting a two-man-tall dragon to spring from the wall, bellow a roar at the men, and then spew blue fire into the alleyway while he and his companions made a break for it. Instead, this strangely clothed girl had taken Nidhog's place, fully connected to the Glyph as expected but decidedly and pointedly not a dragon. Something in the summoning had clearly gone wrong, but where, and how? Damaging a Glyph mid-activation was near-universally rewarded with an eruption of magical energy that consumed the Glyph tablet, the caster, and everything in a radius dependent on the strength of the spell being channeled. It was most certainly not, at least to any modern Glyph-scholar's knowledge, the method of summoning cute girls from the void.

Reflexively, Anmillaen reached out along the channel that had flipped open in his mental landscape. That link gave a directional cue towards where his mana was being channeled, and, sure enough, the young-looking sprite of a girl before them was the endpoint of his telepathic link.

"Can you hear me?" he cast through the link, feeling the words travel and knowing they had landed home.

His thoughts turned inquisitive, and in tandem with the mind-spoken question, he channeled a mote of energy into the summon link. K̴͜n̨̧̕͠e͞͝è̢l͢. The command voice was toneless, formless, deep and sepulchral and rumbling like shifting stones. To the outside world, it was silent, but to the Glyph-summon, it boomed out into her body through the Glyph attached to her skin, beckoning every nerve and muscle in her body to obey.

 

[Aiko-Nao]

The moment stretched, a single heartbeat suspended between realms. Hikari's senses were ablaze, every nerve ending alight with the surreal reality of her transition. The cool, uneven cobblestones beneath her feet, the quaint medieval vista unfolding in every direction, and the stark contrast of her own appearance in this new world—it was a deluge of the unfamiliar and the impossible. Yet, at the center of this storm of sensation was the Glyph, nestled against her sternum, pulsing with a soft blue glow that felt as much a part of her as her own heartbeat.

Confusion tangled with awe as she looked down, her fingers hovering over the Glyph without touching. It was an anchor, grounding her in this unbelievable reality, and with it came a flood of inexplicable comfort. This connection, this Glyph, was her beacon in the chaos, a guide in the formlessness of this new existence.

Her attention snapped to the figures before her as one spoke—not with his lips, but directly into the expanse of her mind. The voice was deep, resonant, and filled the hollows of her being with a command: Kneel.

Shock might have been her initial response, a reflexive push against the intrusion. Yet, what followed was a revelation so profound it bordered on euphoria. The command didn't just resonate; it harmonized with something primal within her, an itch she hadn't known was there until it was blissfully, utterly scratched. Kneeling felt not like submission, but like fulfillment, a key turning in a lock long rusted shut. The action was smooth, almost eager, as if her body recognized the authority of the command more readily than her mind could comprehend it.

As she knelt, Hikari's gaze lifted to the figures before her, a myriad of emotions playing across her features. Surprise, yes, and a touch of wariness, but overshadowing these was a burgeoning sense of adventure, a sparkle of excitement at the unknown paths her life had suddenly veered onto. These people, this place, the very air she breathed was saturated with magic, and despite the abrupt upheaval of her existence, she couldn't quell the thrill that coursed through her.

"Can you hear me?" The question, softer this time, brushed against her thoughts like a feather.

"I... yes, I can hear you," she found herself responding, her voice a whisper in the physical world but clear and strong in the mindscape they now shared. It was a curious sensation, speaking without speaking, her thoughts and emotions laid bare in a way that was startlingly intimate.

Her mind raced, piecing together the fragments of her situation. She was no longer in her world, that much was starkly evident. The reasons, the mechanisms behind her summoning, were an utter mystery. Had she been dreaming? Did a wall collapse in the college hallway and knock her out? Was there a shooter that was loose in the school and killed her? Hikari knew that she would be dead before she even registered the sound of a bullet... The young woman's mind race with all these possibilities, fighting against the world that presented itself right in front of her.

 

[Ryees]

Beillahn's voice cracked in a mix of horror, awe, incredulousness, and jealousy, swirled together in a murky rainbow. "Ani, how... when did—what are, how.... She's human, how..." It was clear on her face that her thoughts were overrunning her tongue, staring down the otherworldly visitor like she was an encroaching lion with an empty belly.

Anmillaen stood stock still, the response in his mental landscape an electric shock stunned him still. "That... was Nidhog's Glpyh, and she can hear me." He frantically snapped open his Glyphcase, spreading the leather pockets with his thumbs and finding that, exactly as he had intended, the dragon-faced Glyph was the one he had thrown for activation. "I only have the four, and you wrote them all, I'm not a writer like you are." He raised a hand, index and middle finger extended and pointed skyward with his palm pointed at his Glyphsummon. "Aora mien Nidhog." The spell was a locator charm, designed to help search for summons that were not sentient, that could not walk back to you. A blue mote of light manifested at the tips of his fingers, drifting lazily towards Hikari and diving through the fabric of her shirt. Underneath, the rune on her chest glowed brightly, its sigil shining through her top, clearly visible for its luminescence.

Beillahn balked, and even Anmillaen gave no sign he intended to move. It was Nitani, ever the most sensible of the three, that broke the silence. "If y'can understand 'im in your mind," he began, seeming to understand that the voice in her head had just spoken, "then y'should be able to understand me out here, too. The tongue does'n change in your mind." He spread his hands peaceably, showing that he was holding no weapons. "You were not what my friend expected t'appear out'a his spell, so please forgive us if we're a bit ruffled."

Anmillaen finally found the words to speak. "And you'll also forgive us if we belay some explanation." His eyes had caught the crest of a helmet behind her, the eyes of a guard peeking around the corner. Having expected catastrophe at the Glyph being damaged, they were made curious by the lack of magical outburst that would have leveled half the block. That head disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, and that made Anmillaen's nerves go tight. He could see the thoughts on her face and feel the tumult in her mind, but was surprised to find that where he expected to find horror, trepidation, and despair, he instead found a dull sense of wonderment laced with an unexpectedly low, but present, tinge of caution. "You don't look like you're from around here," he added, "but we'll all explain later. When we're safe."

As if on cue, a dozen sets of armored boots pounded into the alley way, weapons leveled and showing no sign of stopping their charge. They bellowed a war cry as they flooded the alleyway, blocking off the path behind.

Sparing no time, Anmillaen darted forward, his hands reaching out to Hikari. One snatched her hand, while the other plopped on top of her head and locked her eyes to his. He spoke to her in both realms at once. "R̴̍̚un͒ͮ̌.͠.̸͜͠͝" He dragged her by the hand, putting her ahead of him, and planted a hand between her shoulders to urge her forwards. Beillahn and Nitani needed no such encouragement.

Nitani took off ahead, long legs carrying him smoothly down the western alleyway. When he came to the junction, he pointed left and disappeared. As the three rounded the corner after him, they found themselves on what looked to be the last street of the village before the tree line resumed, signaling the city limit. The road stretched into the distance, curving right and disappearing through the forest.

Anmillaen's mind worked as fast as his feet, trying to analyze as best he could as they ran. Their lack of armor gave them a leg up on speed, but not-Nidhog was showing signs of exhaustion earlier than he would have hoped. The flat shoes she wore were not well-suited to the task of running, and her skirt—pleasant on the eyes, or not—was awkward and caught in the wind, sending ripples of irritation and shame through their link.

"Niani! We can't keep this up!" he screamed ahead, prompting his tall friend to skid to a halt twenty meters ahead of them. "Dust 'em up, we're detouring!"

Nitani's tongue clicked, apparently annoyed by that command, but nonetheless he reached into his own Glyphcase and produced a square of his own. Beillahn gave that square a wistful look as if saying goodbye as she darted past him.

As his long fingers traced its pattern, the Glyph in Nitani's hand began to emanate a black-purple glow. The sigils were round and bulbous, long enough in their pattern for Anmillaen and Hikari to catch up to him by the time he completed the pattern. With a flick of the wrist, he tossed it like a spinning disc, causing it to skip across the cobblestones like a stone on a lake.

It fizzed and popped and crackled, then erupted in a stream of inky black smoke that smelled of charred wood and burning oil. It rent from the tablet at impossible speed, filling the area with a dense, choking black cloud in seconds.

Anmillaen had pulled up the cowl of his collar to shield his nose as the tablet was in the air, but he knew instinctively that Hikari did not know what was to happen. He flitted to her side, announcing his presence in her mind in an attempt to avoid a startle. "Scarf," he announced simply, and with a firm but surprisingly gentle hand, moved his hands around the interior edge of her scarf to free it, fingertips tracing a gentle circle around her chin and over her throat. He lifted it into place and snugged it down, then leaned close to her as the cloud rushed over them like an avalanche of ash.

Visibility dropped to inches within the smog, and he put his head close to hers to find her eyes, and keep hers on his. "We go into the woods. Be careful. You are not dressed for it." He pointed to the tree line, then disappeared as he took off into the dimness of the smoke.

Hikari could hear clearly the steps and shouts of the soldiers as they attempted to navigate the fog. The swirling black clouds played tricks on the eyes, and after a disorienting moment, it was only through the Glyphbond that she could accurately tell which way Anmillaen had gone. She could hear the footsteps of the soldiers clattering on the pavement, slowly, but surely, coming closer to her.

 

[Aiko-Nao]

Breathless and bewildered, Hikari was yanked forward, the sudden urgency jolting through her like lightning. Each step was a battle against the cobblestones that seemed all too eager to trip her up, her flat shoes ill-suited for the rapid escape. The medieval world she had landed in blurred into motion and terror, a stark contrast to the academic worries that had once consumed her thoughts.

The smoke enveloped them in a dense, choking shroud, its acrid scent burning her nostrils and stinging her eyes. Panic clawed at her throat, every instinct screaming for air, for escape from the oppressive darkness. But within the chaos, a singular clarity cut through the fog—the bond with Anmillaen. It was a beacon, a thread of connection in the disorienting haze, guiding her when all other senses failed.

His touch, light yet firm, was the only certainty she had as he adjusted her scarf to shield her from the smoke. Despite the terror, his presence brought an inexplicable comfort, anchoring her to the here and now. The mental nudge was gentle, a stark contrast to the commanding force that had brought her to her knees before. "Scarf," he whispered, both aloud and in the depths of her mind, his voice a lifeline in the tumult.

As they emerged from the clutches of the black fog, the forest greeted them with open arms, the dense canopy above a stark contrast to the open skies of the city. The sounds of nature enveloped them, a symphony of life that was both foreign and familiar. The coolness of the woods was a balm to her smoke-stung skin, the earthy scent grounding her in a way the cobblestones never could. They darted into the woods, the ground beneath them shifting from stone to earth, the air gradually clearing as they broke free from the cloud of smoke. The soldiers' shouts continued behind them, their footsteps a distant thunder that no longer threatened immediate peril, however the variation of voices seemed to be increasing, indicating new arrivals to the hunt.

Her breaths were shallow and rapid as she attempted to articulate her confusion. "What's...happening?" Hikari paused, her hands pressing down on her knees while she leaned forward, trying to catch her breath, the unfamiliar exertion sending aches spiraling through her muscles. "Where...are we?" In a moment of discomfort and rising panic, she shrugged off her wool jacket, the fabric now too warm, sticking uncomfortably to her sweat-dampened skin. Beneath, her cream tank top clung to her form, and it was then that the persistent glow beneath her top demanded her full attention.

With a quick, almost reflexive motion, she lifted her tank top, revealing the glow emanating from the stone set firmly against her skin, just above her heart. The light cast from the glyph illuminated the modest curve of her chest, confined by a simple black bra—a stark contrast to the fantastical element now a part of her. "And.. what the hell is this?!" The question tore from her, a mix of fear, wonder, and incredulity in her voice as she stared down at the glowing stone.

 

[Ryees]

Anmillaen moved through the brush quickly, but somewhat clumsily. Urban environments were his specialty, and the snags and slips of the woods always gave him trouble when he had to move quickly through heavily wooded areas like this. He was quietly grateful when his summon-girl paused, her chest heaving, because his was as well. He leaned his back against a thick oaken trunk, huffing and wiping sweat from his brow as he tactlessly stared at her. He felt the confusion before he heard it, and her questions about what was happening, he felt prepared for.

What he was not prepared for, though, was for her to half-strip in the failing light of forest. That she doffed her coat and was wearing but a string-suspended coverlet underneath was enough to raise his brows, but that she nearly stripped the top off to marvel at her summon Glyph sent a flush of color rippling through his cheeks. She was built not far off of Beillahn, though without the intense physical conditioning that Lahny possessed. But where his sister was all hard lines and angles, this girl was soft and curved, gentle in a way that clashed with the chaos surrounding their escape.

Blissfully, she seemed to be so entranced by her Glyph that she nearly forgot Anmillaen existed in the moment. "That is your summon Glyph," he explained, his need to provide clarity helping to clear his flush. "I don't know where you are from, but you're certainly not a Glyph-creature, that I'm certain of." He flipped open his Glyphcase and pulled Muniin's slate from within, holding it flat before her eyes. He quickly traced the pattern, then tossed his hand sharply, popping the stone up in the air an inch just in time for it to erupt into a cascade of glittering stardust. Those particles swirled inwards on themselves, forming first a beak, then a head, then spiraling backwards to form the body and tail of a crow that, once fully formed, fluttered in the air until Anmillaen put his arm under it. "You will find, very quickly, that Glyphs and their are the center of this world." His hand found the glowing stone set into Muniin's chest that mirrored Hikari's, and gave it a brisk tap. The crow disappeared in a shower of sparks, and Anmillaen returned the Glyph to its pouch.

It felt awkward and rushed to explain it as he did, but the ever-closer sound of pursuit nagged him. If they hadn't needed time to catch their breath regardless, he would have made her wait. He closed the distance to her and tugged her top back down, covering her, but pulling an extra inch to bare the top of the stone—and the tops of her breast, which he strove diligently to ignore as he stuck out one finger and pressed it into her Glyph. Directly connected, he let a thin floe of mana pass into the Glyph. The energy rippled from stone to flesh, finding throbbing muscles and flaring nerves, and dousing them in a cooling, calming balm. "Mana and your body's life energy are not connected," he clarified, "but each one can run out independently, and when they do you will start drawing on the other. If you exhaust one, you start tapping into the other, and you do not want to cross-cast, that's the fastest way to death by mana-burn."

He released the energy, and Hikari would find any vestige in her body that she had just sprinted out of a town square by armed guards a distant memory in her muscles. Parts of that memory, though, reemerged suddenly, as the head of a halberd poked out of a bush a dozen feet behind her.

Reflexively, Anmillaen wrapped his arms around her and dragged her against her chest. In the same motion, he fell backwards, flopping backwards into a bush. The Glyphmage's chest cushioned her fall, but he stifled a grunt as the bottom roots dug into his back.

They were hidden from immediate view as three men emerged into the space they had just occupied. It seemed their own rustling about in metal armor had been loud enough to not hear Anmillaen and Hikari disturb the foliage, but the way their eyes cast around, it was only a matter of time—

A sword blade plunged an inch to their left as the men probed about the brush with their blades. Hikari could see the reflection of her eyes in the sword as it pulled back from the bush, and Anmillaen's were locked on it as it disappeared from view. "We fight, or we run. It is possible you have some vestige of the power of the creature that you were summoned in place of." He crooked his head down, trying to meet her eyes where she lay on his chest. "If you run, go east." Like an invisible hand, the direction was painted in her head. "Otherwise, on my left hip there is a sword. Pull it and go for the one with the halberd. I will guide you."

 

[Aiko-Nao]

Hikari listened, a sense of reassurance washing over her as Anmillaen's words confirmed her otherness in this world. "…but you're certainly not a Glyph-creature, that I'm certain of." The acknowledgment of her difference felt strangely comforting, grounding her amidst the surreal events unfolding around her.

Her eyes widened in wonder as Anmillaen summoned the crow from the slate, the stardust coalescing into form before her very eyes. The spectacle of thousands of sparkling particles moving in harmony was enchanting, a dazzling dance that tethered her to the spot. It was a moment so surreal, so starkly beautiful, that for an instant, the chaos of their escape and the looming threat of pursuit seemed to fade into the background. This display of Glyph magic was like nothing she had ever imagined, let alone witnessed, back in her world of textbooks and college deadlines. It served as a stark reminder of how far from home she truly was, and yet, it was a moment so captivating that she felt a brief disconnection from the gravity of their situation.

As Anmillaen explained the workings of Glyphs and mana, Hikari found herself absorbing every word, the complexities of this new world unfurling before her. The touch of his finger against the Glyph embedded in her skin sent a wave of cooling relief through her, easing the burn of exertion and calming the adrenaline-fueled tremors in her muscles. It was a strange, intimate connection, this direct channeling of mana, yet it brought a palpable sense of relief that was almost instantaneous.

But the tranquility of the moment was shattered by the sudden appearance of a halberd's head, poking menacingly out of the bushes behind her. The immediate danger snapped her back to the present, the magical awe replaced by a surge of fear. Anmillaen's quick reflexes, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into the protective shelter of a bush, were both startling and strangely reassuring. The fall was cushioned by his chest, a brief moment of physical connection that was both awkward and comforting in its necessity.

Anmillaen's voice was drowned out by the frantic pounding of Hikari's heartbeat, each throb echoing furiously in her ears as she attuned herself to the surrounding sounds of the soldiers, bracing for another assault. Paralyzed by indecision, she scarcely breathed as the next thrust of the halberd came down with a vicious intent, grazing her hip and drawing blood. In that moment of raw fear, an instinct surged within her, foreign yet compellingly natural. Without a thought, her hand found Anmillaen's sword, and she sprung into action with a fervor uncharacteristic of her prior self.

Rising from the bush, she faced the onslaught head-on. A halberd bore down on her, its deadly intent clear, but she managed to parry the strike with a desperation she didn't know she possessed, the metallic screech of blade against blade ringing through the air. With a swift motion, Hikari forced the weapon aside and leaped from her cover, plunging the sword into the vulnerable gap beneath the soldier's arm. The battlefield erupted around her as three more soldiers converged, their weapons a whirlwind of death. Yet, she danced among them with a grace born of necessity, deflecting a swinging halberd and dropping low to drive her sword through the foot of another assailant. Extracting the blade, she spun, her movements fluid and lethal, and drove it upwards into the neck of a third attacker. Her expression was a maelstrom of fear and exhilaration, her teeth bared in a primal snarl as adrenaline coursed through her veins.

As Hikari moved, instinct and intuition guiding her every step, words began to form in the periphery of her consciousness. With each parry, each strike, and each narrowly avoided blow, the words grew clearer, as if her mind was translating the flow of battle into a language she could understand. This newfound connection between her actions and the emerging words in her mind's eye seemed to draw upon a well of knowledge she hadn't known she possessed, guiding her through the chaos with an eerie precision.

Just as Hikari braced for another clash, the cold grip of an injured soldier ensnared her from behind, his fingers digging into her flesh with desperate strength. Panic surged through her as she saw another assailant descending upon her, halberd aimed with lethal precision. Time seemed to slow, her heart thundering in her chest, every instinct screaming that this was the end. But in that moment of sheer terror, a phrase surfaced in her mind, clear and commanding—"Flarexon hylar." With no understanding of its meaning but driven by a deep, instinctual trust in the words flooding her thoughts, she screamed the incantation. The air around her hand shimmered, and then, as if she had captured the essence of the sun itself, a blazing torrent erupted from her palm.

The fireball was not a neat sphere of flames but a wild, untamed explosion of fire, more akin to a torch subjected to a violent gust. It surged forward, a radiant lance of heat and light, consuming the space between her and her attacker. The fire did not discriminate in its hunger, and the backdraft scorched her skin, the pain a fierce reminder of the spell's raw power. Yet, even as she recoiled from the searing pain, her focus remained on the soldier before her.

The blaze engulfed him, a brief but intense inferno that halted his advance and sent him staggering back, a human torch alight with the fury of her spell. The soldier who had held her released his grip, either from shock or the fear of sharing his comrade's fate, allowing Hikari a precious moment to break free.

 

[Ryees]

Hikari pushing up off of Anmillaen earned another choked off grunt as some particularly bastardly branch ground its way into his kidney. But he felt, then, that connective draw from her of her spellbook opening and her memory archive being accessed, so he planted his hands to wrestle himself up out of the brush. A moment of panic seized him as a hand was on him, but when his eyes flicked there and he saw the dark cuff of Nitani's sleeve swaying in the darkness, he allowed that hand to help draw him up.

"Y'okay, Ani?" came at the same time as, "Are you safe, Axe?" and he nodded to them both, taking his balance back and moving out of the brush. His flank protested, but it was with a particular urgency that he snapped open his Glyphcase and drew from within it the slate slotted closest to his body. As he pulled it free, his hand traced it without looking, the familiarity with that rune being among his most intimate. As soon as he felt it activate, he flipped it to his left hand and reached his right into the dimly glowing red-brown light within. As his hand withdrew, a mechanically-adorned, curved blade bearing a red sheath came with it, worn and patinaed and comfortably settling in the loop of his belt as he drove it home.

The three insurgents broke from the brush line at a sprint just as the first guard fell and his three companions came into the clearing. Nitani had produced a thin, short, straight blade from somewhere within his clothing; and Beillahn held a Glyph in each hand, one glowing red and the other white.

Beillahn's white Glyph flashed, and from it a lattice-work of white hatches expanded in a dome, ethereal chicken wire snapping into place and forming a large dome in the woods. The guards that had been making their way to the clearing crashed against it in multiple places, which sent ripples up the dome as the chains flexed, but held.

Nitani ghosted through the shadows, skirting the edge of the dome for a span before diving into the brush. The strangled cries of pain from the darkness suggested there had been someone within that no longer drew breath.

Anmillaen watched as Hikari fought tooth and nail, wing and claw, the feed of energy from his mind to hers a gentle torrent. As he approached, he fell into rhythm with her smoothly. She bent to drive her blade though the foot of one assailant, then spun about to fend off a new man. But the soldier with a new hole in his for would never get a chance to investigate his wounds as Anmillaen descended on him blade-first. Her blade found a throat, at the same moment as a halberd was leveled at her back. The trigger on Anmillaen's sword barked, pounding a hole through his hand and causing him to fumble his weapon. That space have Anmillaen enough time to fly up to him and lash his sword across the man's throat.

In the next moment he felt another strong tug on his mind, and that caused his head to snap around to find Hikari in the clutches of a guard with a gash bleeding from his thigh. Anmillaen did not even move to help her though, as he felt a spell start to pull on his mana—instead he dove to the forest floor, face buried in the leaves.

A torrent of dragon fire swept over his head, bringing with it the scent of burning that didn't discriminate between wood smoke and flesh. He waited until he felt the mana flow start to dwindle before scrabbling to his feet and following the link to Hikari.

She had been released by a guard whose face was painted in horror as his comrade was immolated by dragon fire spewing from the palm of a strangely clothed girl. His fear hardened to action quickly, though, as he reached for the dagger on his belt. As it freed from its sheath, its point swept across Hikari's lower back just as Anmillaen reached her. The blade's point snuck a cut into the small of her back at the same moment Axe's hand bunched up in her shirt and dragged her away from her attacker. Anmillaen entered the space she had occupied, and with his attack already passed, the soldier was in no position to defend against the series of cuts that ripped through the gaps of his armor and ended his life.

Immediately, Anmillaen rounded on Hikari and bent a knee to match her height. "Show me," he muttered, putting his hands on her hips and moving to turn her around.