As the five women fell through a space of darkness, a beam of light slowly shot up from the distance, washing over them all.
When it passed, the five of them had come to their senses and found themselves in a wide circular room, not too different in size from the cavern, but made of brick with magic light sources, and several stone platforms around the room, the largest of which housed all five of them currently, with a bright light slowly fading while sparks of magic along a circle beneath them died down.
"A-Alright just stay still now, you might be a touch frazzled after all that!" Said a gentle voice from behind a pane of glass.
Coming around through a separating door, the voice belonged to a kind-faced man, wearing simple professional clothes and a purple vest, with short sandy blonde hair.
"Stand up real nice and slow, normally we'd get y'all stabilized before finalizing teleportation, but this was a bit of a rush job." He said, his Boncly native drawl coming through strongly.
The five of them eventually got up, with Kage still gripping the shard tightly.
"We got a distress signal from Lillian a couple of minutes ago, but I thought she'd be with y'all." He said, looking at the group as they were all incredibly confused.
"Oh, where are my manners, I'm Scotthany Westman, but y'all can just call me Scotthany! Would you like any tea? Cookies? I got a bunch here in my little nook!" He said, carefully leading them past the security door between the teleportation pads and the control panels.
"We can save that for later Scotthany." Said a gruff voice entering the room. "Before anything else, I heard y'all got somethin' for me." A tall man dressed in a green flannel shirt, a black longcoat, black slacks, and slightly heeled shoes with metal spurs came into the room, a brimmed hat resting on his head, with golden eyes, tanned skin, and a tight-kept black beard.
"And you are?" Kage asked, defensively holding the shard away from the entrance.
"I'm Governor Morrison, leader of The Sunsetters. I've got our containment team with us if y'all would kindly hand over the artifact you recovered." Morrison explained, motioning to the team of people behind him, all wearing cobalt labcoats and various pieces of protective equipment.
Kage seemed to be ready to fight back, but she still felt the drain of the sudden teleportation weigh on her, and she had expended a decent amount of energy in the battle. "One condition, we all get to see what exactly you do with it." She said.
Morrison shot a stern, analytical glare at her for a moment, and then gave a short nod, and gestured her to come forward. As the five of them moved to do so, a light on the control panel that Scotthany sat at lit up, and he began to move around the pins, switches, and buttons on the board at a high speed.
As he did, the central teleportation pad began to light up once more, and with a near blinding flash, a new figure entered the room. The bloody, bruised, and partially broken form of Lillian Siog.
"Good reaction time." She wheezed out.
"I got you!" Alena said as she rushed to her side, catching her before she fell.
"I hope this proves myself." She said with a slight smirk towards Valp, before falling unconscious.
"Scotthany, call in the hospital staff!" Morrison shouted as Scotthany began to speak into a lit-up badge on his vest.
"Flora," he began. "If you and Miss Kamimori could come with me to satiate her demand, I'd appreciate it. The rest of you are free to get some rest as you see fit. We'll handle the tougher stuff in the morning." He decreed.
Looking at Lillian, Morrison seemed to be rather upset, but as a group of people in medical clothes and clerical robes came into the room, he regained a stern expression and gave them room to move out. Alena and Valp went with them, leaving Atarah with the other two.
"Now, let's get this stored pronto, and then you can rest. I'd love to find out just what the hell happened, especially to get Lillian in that state, but none of y'all seem on the up-and-up either, so we'll save it for tomorrow." Morrison explained.
Kage carefully handed the shard over to the containment team, who stored it in an intricate metal chest, which became coated in various runes once the lock was shut. Following the team, they soon exited the teleportation chamber.
It was a sight to behold, a clearing as wide as a large town and almost as tall underneath the ground, with several large buildings and facilities jutting from the cleared ground. An extensive rail system connected the buildings, and there were many features and installments that made it actually seem like a large city, along with large crystals that generated artificial sunlight at the top of this massive cave.
"This is rather intense." Kage uttered, struggling to keep pace with the researchers. "Reminds me of home, in a weird way," Atarah mentioned with a slight smile.
They passed through multiple sectors and saw various groupings of people with different colored uniforms, all going about their various businesses. "Impressive, right?" Morrison asked, slightly smug, as they walked onto the nearest rail car.
"Just a bit. Where are we exactly, Edda-wise?" Kage asked. "We're about five miles underneath the capital city of Boncly, Ranger. Our organization has been in the area for more than 2 centuries now, although our operations only moved here about 50 years ago when our science department facilitated it. We've spent a good chunk of time getting everything operational, along with our missions." He explained.
"Once y'all've rested, you'll be shown around the most important parts of the base. You'll need to get used to it after all." The rail took off with a slight lurch towards the north of this large cavern.
"We're going to be staying here? Stuck here!?" Kage shouted, a tinge of genuine panic on her face.
"Of course not, you'll be operating out of here, and we do give agents lodging in our barracks, but it's not like you're being held hostage." He clarified, with a bit of an incredulous scoff at the accusation.
"What do you two think?" She asked, turning to Flora and Atarah, both of whom were preoccupied looking at the rest of the base fly by.
"Do you see those layers on the outer wall? This cave must have been cleared out either carefully or eroded over centuries, maybe millennia! Oh, that layer looks like it's made of Ixaltz, that stuff's really good for pestles, and that one looks like it might've been a compound sediment layer, its strange that there are no stalactites do you think they cleared them away or-" Atarah muttered to herself, although Flora was following along expertly.
"Ugh, I'll ask later."
After a few minutes, the group of them entered a building colored in pale cobalt and were led through long sterilized halls of stone and metal until they reached a wide, open room. With the flick of a switch, several arcane-powered lights illuminated the room, revealing the walls and floors to be coated in multiple protective layers, both magical and physical.
"We use this room as a testing area, but it should be more than enough to store this artifact safely, for now. Once we get everything settled, and the information y'all gathered, we can go about seeing what exactly to do about it. Diagnostics will be the first order of business, and if we can use it to our advantage safely then all the better." Morrison explained, looking directly at Kage, as the group that had come with them along with a few other groups of blue-coated agents came in with various pieces of equipment.
"I know you said we'd discuss this tomorrow, but I feel you should know. The notes we were able to read before leaving implied this was a part of something called Dark Sun." Atarah explained. Morrison cocked an eyebrow and shot Flora a look.
"An ancient and super scary artifact from 6000 years ago! There's no way to tell what kind of dangers it might cause." Flora recounted without the manic energy she showed previously.
"Noted. Well, for now, we'll store it here and keep an eye on it," Morrison replied as the staff behind him sealed the box up in a few more physical and arcane boundaries. "You all can go and get some rest for now."
Kage kept a sharp stare alternating between the shard and Morrison, but seemed to resign for the time being, turning on her heel and walking from the building without uncrossing her arms.
Atarah and Flora soon caught up with her, and after some minor confusion with the hallways exited the building and returned to the rail system, with their next location being the hospital within the base.
"You're acting more than a little suspicious Kage, what's up?" Flora asked as the trio settled into their seats on the tram.
"The fact that you two are being nonchalant is the weirder part. I can speak that the people I worked with are perfectly ordinary, but I don't know a damned thing about Morrison, the organization at large, or anyone else who might have access to that massive well of pure arcane power. Besides, if he's so keen on finding a use for it, who knows what kind of consequences that'll have? He mentioned 'safely' but greed can make one blind to the risks. The only reason I let them have it is that, as much as I loathe to admit it, I'm not in a good position to fight back or make demands at this point in time." She explained.
"Well, when you put it like that I understand, after all, I assume that if it was strong enough to break magic then it could cause all kinds of destruction. But, I don't think we need to worry about Morrison at least." Atarah added on.
"Oh ya? I agree, but how're you so sure?" Flora asked with a toothy smile.
"It's hard to explain," Atarah began, rubbing her armband. "But the easiest way to put it is that he seemed honest. Same as Lillian earlier."
"Well, she at least turned out to be a perfectly fine person, so I suppose I'll trust your intuition for now," Kage said, leaning back and looking out the tram windows before snapping back to her two compatriots, finger pointed towards them.
"But mark my words, the both of you, the only time I'll let anyone, especially some man, truly defeat me is over my dead body! What you're witnessing is a truce, nothing more!"
"That's quite the intense ideology," Atarah said with a nervous giggle.
"What can I say, my mother raised me right."
It only took them a few more minutes to get to the eastmost sector of the large base, which housed the main hospital and other medical buildings, and not much longer to get access and find the area where the others had been waiting.
"Took you guys long enough, I was worried I'd croak before you got back!" Alena said with a laugh, standing up as the other three approached. "New place, we got lost." Kage said with an eye roll.
"How is she?" Atarah asked.
"From what was told to us, she's fine, just needs to rest." Valp replied.
"Since she passed out the vampire part of her has been working hard to regenerate all the injuries she took, faster than healing magic could, so she'll be right as rain in the morning." Alena elaborated.
"Ah, that's mighty nice to hear!" Said a new voice on the scene, as Scotthany the teleportation agent walked up to the others. "Sorry to pop up all of a sudden, but Morrison forgot a couple things for the five of y'all!" He said as the others turned to face him.
"Normally he'd wanna hand these out personally, but since the situations different he didn't want y'all to be without 'em." Scotthany said while handing a small box to each of the five. Inside were three things. First was a CELL Stone, the arcane communication and location device that was all the rage, a Sunsetter badge like Lillian and Scotthany possessed, and a key.
"Those CELL Stones are keyed into the Sunsetters communication network, so we can quickly get ahold of y'all and vice versa, the badges are specifically to get in touch with lil' ol' me and our other teleportation crew, and the keys are to y'alls barrack rooms! They got the basic furnishin's y'all'll need at the moment!" He happily explained.
"I've already got a CELL Stone though, and I'd prefer to keep it." Atarah explained. "Oh that's alright, you can sync em up like this-" He replied before explaining the process.
Afterward, while the others were checking out their new devices, Scotthany couldn't help but let his eyes wander over to Lillian, before snapping back. "Well, it's gettin' late, and I'm sure you all wanna get some rest, you'll have a big day tomorrow! G'night y'all!" Scotthany said, before politely exiting the area.
"Maybe we should do as the kid said, I could use some rest!" Alena said with a stretch.
"I definitely need my beauty sleep." Kage replied.
"Not a bad idea." Valp continued.
"It'll be nice to be underground again." Atarah whispered.
"You guys get some good rest! I have some personal things to check out at the archives here~!" Flora said, spritefully skipping away before the others could really pose their questions.
Letting it go as Flora being Flora, the other four made their way to the barracks as they had been lucky enough to get rooms in the same hall as each other.
They all let the stress of the day unpack as they wound down into slumber. Alena reflected on the fates of the Bunker family, and the odd physiology of Levistus, along with her evening prayers to Heliotrop. Valp meditated as she felt the sting of her wounds still remaining, thinking of ways to better combat the same strategies if they're to occur again.
Kage, for her part, had her mind full of machinations and plans for what to do if she needed to grab the shard and run, who she'd take down, what magic she'd use, and where she could potentially take it.
And Atarah, her mind was in a million places. What ingredients to refill for her potions, what strategies worked and which ones didn't, if Valp had been accurate in her assessment, or if she was being too harsh for a single bout of combat. Was she right that Atarah could have died? It's not like Atarah hadn't faced monsters, literal and metaphorical, before and lived to tell the tale, how was this any different? Is Kage right that the Sunsetters can't be trusted? Who was the woman that even Lillian was so terrified of? Was she still in the Material Realm?
Eventually, her mind thought so much that it drained what little energy she had left, and sleep overcame her.
In the late hours of the night, Morrison had returned to his main office and saw a familiar figure sitting in a chair expectantly. "You've been through a lot today, ain't ya tired?" Morrison asked, turning on the light to the room.
"I figured that you'd want to talk to me first. I am the superior officer, after all~." The catty voice declared.
Morrison gave a slight snicker at the comment. "Very well then, tell me, it might've been more intense than you, me, or Booth intended, but how do you judge our recruits," He began, sitting across from the figure at his desk.
"Tempest Archivist Flora."
Wearing a sly, toothy grin and a new emerald cropped jacket, Flora casually floated in the air, a pair of ephemeral, pixie-like wings holding her up. "Well, where should I begin~."
Within the nearly monochromatic Midnight Realm, the castle of Rosellia was abuzz with whispers. But, as the armored heel of the woman known as Queen clicked through the hall leading up to the throne, all were quickly silenced.
Next to the throne floated a pale woman in a wide and elegant ballgown, with piercing yellow eyes and red hair kept in a neat braid. "I take it you had an entertaining night, my Queen?" She asked with a sly smirk while bowing.
"But of course, dear Powell. For the first time in decades, I saw my lovely daughter again!" Rosellia said with a giggle and a satisfied sigh. "Oh, but you should've seen the state of her!"
"Surrounded by nothing but mortals. Two mangy mutts, a pixie, and two more nobodies who stunk of death, and not in a fun way. I tried to swat them away for her," Rosellia recounted as she spun on her heel, and fell casually upon her throne.
"But then she just let them run away, and started to attack me! It was so rude!"
"Disappointing indeed. How were her combat capabilities, now that you mention it?" Powell replied, pulling out a small notebook and apparating a quill.
Rosellia began to laugh voraciously, sending it echoing through the halls. "Oh, it was absolutely hilarious in a sad way. She tried her best to sneak into my blind spot and take me out with a bow! If she was so eager to lose, she could've at least come straight at me. We Siogs aren't ones who utilize sneak attacks and the like. We march up to the enemy, look them in the eyes, and rip their still-beating hearts out!"
"Well, if her escape taught us anything, she's always been the rebellious one." Powell replied with a chuckle.
"And here I thought letting her run away would make her appreciate all she had here even more, especially after I taught her that first lesson. But, she's just gotten more and more rebellious and foolish. If there's anything she's actually improved at, she's gotten better at her Kingsblood abilities, she even commanded me for a solitary second." Rosellia said, with a twinge of genuine sadness in her voice, which was soon eradicated with a snap of her fingers.
"Speaking of foolish, Leviticus is dead!" She said with the pep of a friendly reminder.
"Noted, I'll be sure to announce that we are in need of a new court Diviner." Powell replied.
"Don't," Rosellia commanded, earning a cocked eyebrow from her Duchess.
"While Leviticus was defeated, no doubt by Lillian and her pets, I could feel the tingle of energy throughout the cavern, old energy, powerful energy. I do believe that means he was right." Her fang-filled smile grew wider as she explained this to Powell, who shot back a sadistic smirk of her own.
"So, are we underway to commence operation Rose Garden?"
"Ah, dear Duchess Powell, this is why I keep you around, you understand me so well!" Rosellia said with a slight squee, rising from her throne once again.
"Gather the news carriers, and prepare the Rose. It's time for The Rozen Court to truly be formed." With a bow, Powell teleported from the throne room in a flash of magic, and Rosellia returned to the balcony she had launched herself from a few hours previous, looking over her kingdom.
"Look at this land. An eternal night, full of unlife and beautiful scent of blood and fear. But it's not enough, is it? The people need more, the land needs more, I need more, and just beyond the thinnest of veils, more is there, but ever out of our grasp." Rosellia laments, reaching into the horizon.
"Just you wait, oh grand Material Realm, we shall be coming for you. I will march right up to you, look your foolish damned heroes straight in the eye, and rip out your very essence for my own!" Her voice raised until it practically echoed throughout her entire kingdom.
