*drrrrr….!
With a loud, continuous whirring that almost sounded like a steady growl, the Nightjarr tore through the skies, gliding low enough that the rugged terrain below could still be seen in detail.
The landscape stretched endlessly beneath them—rolling plains, broken ridges, and traces of ruins half-buried by time.
The ship's engines pulsed with a rhythmic hum as it maintained altitude, the hull vibrating faintly with every shift in air pressure.
Rox sat firmly in the pilot's seat, her gloved hands resting on the controls, her sharp eyes flicking between the terrain outside and the readings flashing on the holoscreens before her.
Her mission was simple—follow Gelhyne's lead, locate the ruin she spoke of, and investigate.
Simple, but far from easy.
"Atmospheric readings are stable around us for now, Captain," came a voice from the ship's console—a smooth, synthetic tone belonging to Rhaul, the Nightjarr's radar AI.
"What further actions would you like to perform?"
"Perform a geological survey," Rox replied, her tone sharp yet calm as her eyes stayed on the horizon.
"Scan everything within a fifteen-kilometer radius while we move. I want to see any site showing signs of high anomaly—particularly those with residual eidric energy. Ruins, fractured grounds, or anything unnatural. If it hums, glows, or even twitches wrong, flag it."
"By your command," Rhaul replied immediately, its voice carrying that obedient efficiency only a machine could muster.
From behind Rox, Gelhyne finally spoke, her voice calm but laced with faint surprise.
"So you did listen after all."
Rox tilted her head slightly but didn't look back.
"Listen to what exactly?" she asked, pretending ignorance as a faint smirk tugged at her lips.
"My lecture during the meeting," Gelhyne said, crossing her legs and resting her chin on her hand.
"I explained how ruins that contain eidric traces could lead us to the Rune of Veristalzes… and now you're quoting me word for word."
Rox let out a soft chuckle.
"Oh, how could I possibly ignore such a graceful and intelligent person like you?" she said, her tone dripping with sarcasm as her eyes flicked toward the scanning display.
Gelhyne narrowed her eyes.
"You're mocking me."
"Maybe," Rox said lightly, "but you're not wrong either."
She tapped a few buttons on the control panel before leaning back.
"Celer, you take over flight controls—maintain speed and stability while Rhaul performs the scans."
"Aye, Cap'n!" chimed another, more playful voice through the speakers—Celer, the Nightjarr's AI co-pilot.
"I'll keep her steady as muuuch as possible, promise!"
With the Nightjarr now gliding smoothly through the sky, its thrusters humming in a calm, controlled rhythm, Rox reached for her harness and unbuckled it with a sharp
*click
The straps slid free, and she stood up in one smooth motion, the faint glow of the cockpit's displays reflecting off her cloak as she moved toward the side compartments.
Gelhyne followed her quietly with her eyes, saying nothing as Rox knelt by a metallic panel near her seat.
With a press of a button, the compartment hissed open—steam releasing in a short burst before several weapon racks slid upward from within the storage bay.
An entire arsenal unfolded before them.
There were marksman rifles with sleek black plating and glowing runes engraved across their sides, assault rifles humming faintly with contained eidric energy, compact blasters, and even a pair of heavy railguns whose barrels shimmered with faint traces of heated metal.
The entire display pulsed with restrained power, the air around it faintly warping from the concentration of eidra within each weapon.
But Rox's attention wasn't on the rifles or the railguns—it was on the smaller tubes nestled neatly in their own section of the compartment.
There were hundreds of them, lined up like cartridges, each one glowing with faint swirling light—liquid eidra, condensed and sealed within transparent shells.
Rox reached in and grabbed a handful, about a dozen or so, before taking one of the assault rifles from the rack.
She sat down beside Gelhyne, her movements methodical as she set the weapon across her lap.
"Don't mind me," Rox said casually, her tone almost playful as she pulled back the rifle's slide and began slotting the glowing tubes into its energy chamber.
The faint
click-click
of the locking mechanism echoed through the cabin, followed by the low hum of the rifle powering up.
Gelhyne crossed one leg over the other, glancing at Rox from the corner of her eye.
"Don't worry, I won't," she replied with deliberate snobbishness, tilting her head away as if she couldn't care less.
Rox chuckled under her breath.
"Whateeever you say," she replied in a mocking sing-song tone, flashing a brief grin before refocusing on her task.
*click… *clack…!
The metallic click of parts sliding into place broke the quiet, then fell into a steady rhythm—the kind of small music that came from hands that knew their tools.
Rox worked methodically, each motion precise, the rifle warming with a soft hum as the last tube locked home.
Gelhyne watched, pretending not to care, but her eyes kept drifting back to the glowing cartridges.
She leaned forward just a fraction, studying the way the eidra inside pulsed, the way the casing fit into the chamber. .
"It's my only way to keep from getting eaten on the ground," Rox said, shrugging as she clicked the weapon's safety back on.
"You'd die if you met even a mid-level eidric beast with that," Gelhyne replied bluntly, but there was no cruelty in it—only a hard, practical truth.
She crossed her arms, still watching.
"And yet… those tubes. They don't look standard."
Rox gave a short, humorless snort.
"Standard doesn't cut it where I come from. These are condensed eidra—tuned to punch through whatever I shoot it at."
Gelhyne frowned, fingers tapping a loose rhythm on her knee.
Up close, the guns looked like other eidric arms she'd seen in distant files: runes etched along barrels, conduits that glowed faintly with trapped energy.
But when the rifle thrummed in Rox's hands, Gelhyne felt something else—an odd numbness under her own eidra, like the weapon's signature pushed at the edge of perception and didn't quite match any pattern she knew.
She didn't say it out loud.
Instead she let the silence sit between them for a beat, then asked quietly, "Where did you get these?"
Rox met her gaze, eyes steady. "Made them myself. Or fixed them myself, anyway."
Gelhyne's look sharpened, not surprised so much as intrigued.
There was a scale to it now—skill, resource, danger—stacked behind Rox's casual words.
Rox shouldered the rifle and tested the weight.
"Despite all the shitheads back at the empire… there were a handful that I liked—and one of em, taught me how to make… well, these."
Gelhyne nodded, still watching the glowing tubes as if memorizing their shape.
Whatever it was about those weapons—shape, sound, or the way they hummed under the skin—it was wrong in a good way.
Whatever it was, it was no ordinary eidric weapon.