Chapter 305 – Spoils Divided

Emily spends most of her time as they travel towards the FAF outpost in a training room with Lumaes, passing on her insights on the metal element. Their connections with the element are a little different, with Emily focusing more on its malleability and adaptability while Lumaes is more closely attuned to its sharpness and rigidity. However, with her vast understanding and experience with the element, Emily still proves a good teacher. She also passes on a basic understanding of the crew and the general structure of the three universal powers, using the same spell she used to pour her memories into the alchemical blend while making her.

Silvia gladly takes over training the homunculus in physical combat to help her break away from Emily’s style, which has been ingrained into her by her initial memory package. The vampire gets a good laugh when Lumaes calls her ‘Other Mother’, and Emily leaves them alone to return to her Factory to check on the production lines refilling her stock of metal soldiers.

When they eventually reach the outpost, Emily’s finally started on building a new generation of her spatial anchor birds. Harriet alerts her to their arrival, and she slips out of her Factory, leaving behind Mensacus to watch over Silica as she meditates, pushing towards her next ascension.

“I’m starting to run low on spatial crystals,” Emily announces as she strides onto The Mothership’s bridge. Lumaes is waiting by the door, gazing out at the floating megastructure before them, and she moves to follow as Emily comes to stand at Silvia’s side, behind Wilder’s control chair. “Can we send a party to purchase some more?”

“Shouldn’t you have bought some when you were at Xerten?” Silvia questions.

“Possibly, but I thought my current stock would last me longer. It would have been enough to rebuild what I lost, but I’ve had too many good ideas, so it’s not enough.”

“Okay, Eidecht mentioned running low on some stock too: we’ll put together a trading party to visit the merchants crossing into the sector when we’re done here.”

“Y’all should think about selling off some of those slave collars we have in storage,” Wilder adds without looking away from his data readouts. “They’ll fetch a pretty penny and should cover a restock easily.”

“Not yet,” Silvia replies. “We have enough liquid funds for now, and we’ll get a much better deal if we take them to a specialist in bulk.”

The outpost ahead is a completely artificial structure the size of a planet. There’s a central spire of metal surrounded by several interlocking concentric rings covered in weapon placements and ship docks. There are tens of ships with FAF markings floating among the rings, quietly waiting for any sign of attack.

They follow the directions of an on-station coordinator and leave most of their ships orbiting the station while The Mothership and a few guards fly down to an open docking port waiting for them. The moment they’re locked in place, Emily and Silvia leave the bridge and collect the team that returned from the dungeon before heading out to meet a Sub-Commander waiting for them.

Emily sends Lumaes into her Factory to take Mensacus’ place watching Silica in case of mana deviation and pulls the chimaera out to join them.

“Welcome, Heavy-Bl- sorry, Crimson-Blade Pirates,” a fiscushia with two arms and a large set of wings greets them. “I’m Sub-Commander Sethipal.”

Neither Emily nor Silvia react to the heavy judgement dripping from his hissing clicks, though they both hear it loud and clear.

“You must be Captain Silvia, and you… you must be the new Vice. Should I know you?”

“Only if you keep up with our reports, but I understand if that’s too much with the heavy workload you must carry managing this outpost,” Emily responds flatly. “I’m Emily, a relatively new crewmember, but I have been here since we took this job, so I’m surprised you’re so… uninformed.”

The Sethipal visibly bristles, though he tries not to show it, forcing his wings to still the moment they shiver.

“Right. I take it this is the group you sent into the dungeon?”

“That they are.” Silvia nods, taking over the conversation with a small, amused curl to her lips.

“Strange that they made it out just fine when those of our forces we sent with them didn’t.”

“I’m sure you’re aware of the dungeon’s destabilisation, no? We just so happened to have our own safety measures in place and managed to pull them out before the collapse.”

Silvia smiles, and none of them believes what she’s saying.

“Of course, and their method of contacting you just so happened to survive whatever destroyed ours?

“Exactly!”

Sethipal huffs and moves on, glancing at the matching, rune-covered bags strapped to the backs of the dungeon team. “Are they carrying all of their spoils with them?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Follow me. Our mages will confirm the divide according to our standing contract. I’m sure that won’t be an issue, no?”

“Of course not. Lead the way.”

The Sub-Commander turns and strides off towards a transporter at the edge of the hangar. They fill the compact compartment before it shudders and slides off through the outpost. There are no windows to let them see where they’re going, and they stand in stilted silence as they wait.

Eventually the transporter comes to a stop, and the door opens again into a hall a fraction of the size of the hangar holding The Mothership. There are dozens of doors lining the walls of the hall, and nearly as many fiscushia emanating mana signatures between second and fourth circle. In the centre of the space, surrounded by half of the mages in the hall, is a large stone obelisk covered in tens of crystals and hundreds of runes, and Emily spots several attributed to mental in the mix.

She subtly slips an arm around Silvia’s waist and reaches back with the other to brush her fingers against Mensacus’ arm through his obscuring robes, pouring out mental mana to forge a silent connection with them.

‘Careful, that artefact’s some form of mental scanner.’

‘I noticed,’ Mensacus replies. ‘It reeks of invasive intent.’

‘You think they’re scanning our minds already?’ Silvia questions.

‘No, it’s currently inactive,’ Emily confirms, scanning over the visible runes with her gaze to try and discern its exact function. ‘It also doesn’t appear strong enough to break into your mind forcefully, though I wouldn’t try telling blatant lies near it.’

One of the fourth circle mages approaches the group.

“Please approach the dividing circle one by one and unload your spoils,” they explain, gesturing towards a wide magic circle carved into the ground and linked to the large construct. “It will automatically remove our fair share, and once you are given the signal, you are to collect what remains and return to your group. Please do not resist the verifier’s scan. It will only confirm you have presented everything you gained within the dungeon, and nothing more. If the result is unclear, we may ask you a few confirmation questions to clear it up. Is that understood?”

Everyone nods in agreement, and Emily and Silvia step aside with Sethipal to watch.

Mensacus silently waves forward the first of their group, who enters the circle and pulls the bag from her back, turning it up and pouring the contents onto the floor. A flood of crystals, chunks of mana-packed rock, ores, and several herbs wrapped in individual containment enchantments piles up. A few of the watching mages hiss at the sheer quantity of materials, but most remain stoic as they pour their mana into the crystal-covered obelisk.

The circle on the floor lights up, and the pile slowly shifts, a large portion of the loot remaining still as the rest drifts to the edge of the circle, passing through it and coming to a rest outside. It’s obvious at a glance that over half of the spoils remain in front of the Crimson-Blade crewmember, but Emily notices a slight leaning towards the magic crystals leaving the circle.

They’re prioritising raw energy value in choosing their portion.

After the motion stops, there are a few moments before the obelisk pulses with white light and the surrounding mages motion for the pirate to collect her remaining spoils. As she’s gathering the materials back into her storage, the mages at the edge of the room reach out with their mana and pull over the FAF’s share, dividing the items into different categories and opening the doors behind them to put them away.

The Crimson-Blade pirate leaves the circle, and Mensacus points to the next to go. The same process continues without pause, the obelisk pulsing white each time, until Rotwire finally takes his turn, leaving only Mensacus left.

When the mechanical chimaera finally enters the magic circle he pulls up the edge of his cloak, and releases a flood of materials more than twice as large as the chimaeric hound’s before him.

“Wow, your crew really did well for itself,” Sethipal hisses, his translator removing the barely-concealed displeasure from his tone. “To think you could gather so much alone.”

“My son always does his best,” Emily responds, watching the obelisk carefully.

As Mensacus’ loot is divided, the enchanted construct pulses grey, and the mages surrounding it tense.

The fiscushia who gave them their instructions approaches the circle, gesturing for Mensacus to remain still.

“Is this everything you took from the dungeon?”

“No,” Mensacus responds dismissively, using a cloud of raw mana to draw his remaining spoils back into the darkness of his cloak.

The mage questioning him bristles at his response, and Emily can feel the others starting to gather their mana as Sethipal turns to glare at her.

“Why are you not presenting everything?” the mage continues.

“I don’t believe I’m required to by our contract,” Mensacus answers, and several runes on the obelisk light up white. “The only other item I took from the dungeon bonded itself to part of me. We are allowed to keep anything that would be harmful to remove, no?”

The same runes pulse white again, but the main glow surrounding the construct remains grey.

“That was part of the agreement…” The mage doesn’t seem satisfied, but they can’t deny the truth of his claim. “Is this bonded item the only thing you’re not presenting?”

“Yes.”

Another white pulse, and the mage reluctantly turns to Sethipal and nods.

“It would appear all is in order,” the Sub-Commander begrudgingly mutters, turning to lead them back into the transporter. “The dungeon may now be settled, but we cannot forgive those mechanoid scum for taking advantage of its appearance to try and encroach on our territory. Your next assignment is to join a party who’ll strike back at them to see how they like having their lands claimed. The coordinates for the meeting point will be sent to you when you leave the outpost, and once you get there, you’re to follow the command of Sub-Commander Herifel, who is leading the charge.”

“Understood,” Silvia replies, flashing a bloodthirsty smile. “It’s about time we did something other than defend.”

***

On the way to the meeting point for the assault on mechanoid territory, Emily’s helping Eidecht refine a design for a new generalised electromagnetic rifle when she feels a pulse of energy from within her Factory.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” she tells the lizardkin, waving over the holographic blueprint in front of her. “I believe Silica’s ascension is starting in full.”

“Good luck,” Eidecht replies, staring at the edits Emily’s made and waving her off without looking up.

Emily pulls herself into her personal pocket dimension and appears at Mensacus’ side, nearly ten metres away from the centre of the space where Silica is curled into a ball. She’s surrounded by a swirling storm of Emily’s energies, drawing them into herself and turning the crackling charge closest to her into a blend of sand, wind, and raw heat.

“How long has she been like this?” Emily asks her son.

“A few minutes. The rate of her energy absorption started increasing rapidly nearly ten minutes ago, but it only reached a point of noticeably disturbing the space about fifty seconds ago.”

Emily nods and sits down, drawing more mana into the dimension from outside and directing it to pour towards her daughter, letting some of her own out to enter the mix as well. Mensacus silently stands beside her, watching the process without moving an inch.

They can feel Silica’s mana signature steadily rising, crossing the boundary into a third circle level. There’s a tension in the air as her mana pulses, and the mana storm around her shudders wildly for a few moments before her second circle fully stabilises and her third comes together.

Emily watches closely for any signs of her losing control of the boundless energy flowing into her, but Silica continues gathering energy without pause, her breathing steady and calm as she starts to grow in size. She reaches nearly three metres long from nose to tail before her growth stops, and her tail begins to shudder as the storm around her begins to dissipate.

By the time the fox opens her eyes and lifts her head to stare at her mother with a smug grin, she has three separate tails where there once was one.

“Well done,” Emily beams proudly, walking over to offer her daughter praise, reaching down to scratch behind her ears.

Silica stands up on her hind legs to butt her nose against Emily’s chin, and Emily’s eyes widen as the three tails swishing happily behind her merge back into one extra-fluffy appendage.

“Wait a second, have you always been able to do that?”

“Maybe…” Silica giggles, burying her face in Emily’s shoulder and purring away.

***

They reach the meeting point coordinates after almost two months of sustained flight. It’s near the edge of fiscushia-controlled space, and they run into several small mechanoid scouting parties on the way, but none are able to stall them for more than a few hours.

The meeting point turns out to be an open patch of space filled to the brim with various groups of ships congregating together. There are several hundred bearing FAF markings, and not a single other group even comes close in size, leaving the Crimson-Blade Pirates as the second largest force. Emily and Silvia meet on the bridge for the final approach, so they’re both present when a communications request comes through.

“Hello, I take it you’re the Crimson-Blade Pirates?” asks a ficsushia who appears on the largest screen in front of Wilder. Her tone is noticeably lighter than that of the other sub-commanders they’ve met, but it still retains a hard edge, and the woman has a familiar form with two arms and four wings. “I’m Sub-Commander Herifel. Will you have any issues following my command during this assault?”

Despite being several kilometres from the massive ship leading the FAF forces, which carries two plasma cannons the size of The Blade’s on either side, Emily can feel an imposing presence pulsing with power.

She’s eighth phase.

“Not at all,” Silvia responds smoothly, though Emily doesn’t fail to catch the excited gleam in her eye. “I’m Silvia, this crew’s captain, and I can assure you that my people won’t cause you any problems.”

“Good. Fall in on my fleet’s right flank then and align your flight control systems with ours. There are still more due to join us, so I will alert you when we’re ready to set off.”

She cuts the call without another word, leaving the bridge quiet other than Wilder’s muted grumbling at having to allow another to guide his hand.

“I’m not sure she’d take too kindly to you asking to spar, but I can warp us over if you’d still like to try,” Emily offers with a small curl to her lips.

“Cheeky,” Silvia huffs, turning to stride back towards her quarters. “I’m sure I can survive the wait. If we’re heading into mechanoid space with a large fleet and an eighth phase leader, we’ll most certainly meet some fun opponents.”