"Wait, wait, wait," Rox cut in suddenly, lifting one gloved hand to halt Gelhyne mid-sentence.
"Did I just hear that right? You're telling me this rune actually belongs to an elder lich!?"
Her tone was a mix of disbelief and amusement, the kind that came from hearing something both insane and somehow believable.
"Close," Gelhyne replied without hesitation, calm as ever.
*clutter!
She reached into her pile of scrolls and pulled out a thick, ancient tome—its bindings cracked, its pages frayed and yellowed.
"Veristalzes wasn't a lich. He was an ancient eidric sorcerer, one of the first ever recorded. A being so powerful he could command the dead themselves using necrotic eidra."
She flipped open the brittle pages carefully until she reached one that contained a faint, hand-drawn sketch.
"See here?" she said, pointing toward the center of the page.
"This illustration dates back nearly ten thousand cycles. That figure there is Veristalzes."
Rox leaned forward, resting her forearm against her knee as she peered down at the aged parchment.
The sketch depicted a tall, robed figure with a bone-thin body and a towering, ornate hat that resembled a high priest's crown.
The faint strokes of ink showed hollow eyes and jagged ribs visible beneath the robes—definitely giving lich vibes.
"Yeah, I'm sorry, but if that's not a lich, then I don't know what is," Rox muttered, squinting closer.
Ignoring the comment, Gelhyne tapped her finger toward what the figure was holding in its skeletal hand.
"Look here—the orb."
Rox's eyes followed the line of the drawing until they landed on the round object gripped in Veristalzes' palm.
It glowed faintly, even through the faded ink, with smaller glyphs drawn in a circular pattern around it.
She studied the details carefully before narrowing her eyes.
"It's small… about the size of his fist," she murmured, tracing the edges with her finger.
"And those markings around it… that's eidric script, isn't it?"
"That's right," Gelhyne nodded, her tone lowering slightly.
"It's said that Veristalzes poured the essence of his own eidra into that orb—a fragment of himself, condensed into eternal form."
Rox leaned back, processing the thought.
"So, basically, a walking skeleton made a magic battery out of his soul," she said bluntly, shaking her head.
She then turned her eyes to Gelhyne.
She turned her eyes back to Gelhyne, waiting.
"So? What is this rune for?" she asked.
Her voice was direct.
She needed the answer, at least to sate her curiosity.
She wanted to know why Gelhyne risked all this for one small object.
Why push into the Veil and face those beasts for what might be nothing more than a trinket.
Gelhyne took a breath. She folded her hands around the edge of a worn page as if steadying herself.
"I have no use for the rune itself," she said, plain and steady.
"Laxuva Doctrina—my black market—already has runes far more powerful than this one."
She tapped a line of script on the page, showing the name like proof.
Her fingers tightened for a moment, then relaxed.
"What I need is its essence. Its eidra."
Her voice dropped to a low tone, but it was clear.
"I need that eidra so I can refine it and shape it into a tool. A one-time tool."
Rox waited.
The word "tool" made her frown; she wanted the rest. Gelhyne's eyes flicked away for a second, like she was afraid to say more.
"And that is foooor…?" Rox pushed, soft but firm.
Gelhyne hesitated, then spoke again.
Her voice grew quieter, almost a whisper.
"I would use that… I would—"
*ahem!
She swallowed, cough barely masking the sharp pull of emotion.
"I would use it to contact my mother, my already dead mother, pulling her essence from the ethereal realm… and learn about who killed her."
"Keke! So it was a revenge plot after all, eh?" Gunn said with a clicking laugh, giving Rox's arm a heavy nudge that nearly made her stumble.
"Urgh… damn insect," Rox muttered in irritation, clicking her tongue before exhaling a long sigh.
She rose from her seat, brushing herself off as she looked up at the ceiling of her ship.
Her voice grew quieter, the tone shifting from annoyed to heavy.
"The Great Zeveron Ark," she said slowly, as if saying the name alone stirred something she'd tried to forget.
Her eyes stayed fixed above, like she was staring past the metal walls—seeing a memory instead of her ship's ceiling.
"You've heard of it," she said, her tone sharpening again.
"No—scratch that. You definitely have. Seeing who you are, I'd be shocked if you didn't." Rox's gaze drifted toward Gelhyne.
"You're a data broker, after all."
Gelhyne didn't answer right away.
Her usual composed expression softened into something more cautious.
She opened her mouth but said nothing, the silence itself confirming she knew the name.
Rox smirked faintly, though there was no real humor in it.
"A giant world-traveling ship owned by the Corvi Empire," she continued, her tone turning into something halfway between pride and grief.
"A city floating through the stars. A place where nobles were born—where I was born."
Her voice faltered for just a second before she forced her expression back into its usual calm, her fingers tightening briefly at her side.
Gelhyne's eyes went wide.
She hadn't seen records saying Rox came from the Zeveron Ark—only that Rox was a war orphan, raised and used by the empire.
That gap in Gelhyne's data made the name land harder than Rox expected.
"Caught you off guard, didn't I?" Rox asked, forcing a smirk as she crossed her arms and leaned against the ship's bulkhead.
She let the silence sit for a beat, then said the names clearly.
"Dreiklos Rex Vrin. Jeina Miren Xuth. Those were my parents."
Her voice stayed steady, but the words hit the small cabin like a thrown stone.
"The fleet admiral of the Dreiklos navy and the general of the White Tide—killed by the empire, in front of me."
Gunn's reaction shredded the quiet.
"WHAT!?" he barked, voice echoing off the metal.
"The fleet admiral and the general? Those are your parents?!"
Rox gave a short, humorless laugh.
"No, no they aren't," she said sarcastically, then let the laugh die away.
She turned from Gunn and faced Gelhyne properly.
Her hand reached out and gripped Gelhyne's, fingers firm though slightly trembling.
"I know what it feels like," Rox said, eyes locked on Gelhyne's.
"That boiling, searing rage that sits under your skin. That urge to burn everything in your way." S
he squeezed once, a quick, hard reminder that she meant it.
"I know it… aaaall too damn well."