Joy Pursuit: Steel Dragon [Sci-Fi Fantasy | Horror | Action]

"⠠⠊⠙⠑⠝⠞⠊⠞⠽ ⠧⠑⠗⠊⠋⠊⠑⠙⠒ ⠠⠕⠍⠝⠊⠎⠞⠗⠁⠇⠇⠊⠎ ⠉⠇⠁⠎⠎ ⠠⠉⠁⠇⠁⠍⠊⠞⠽ ⠠⠑⠝⠞⠊⠞⠽—Bayren Emperar… We meet again." The Hy'Kyyrian's disjointed mesh of warbled syllables collapsed into speech. Cold. Inhuman. It sounded as if a slab of metal had suddenly learned how to talk—no resonance, no breath, just an abrupt extrusion of noise from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Bayren felt the Hy'Kyyrian's voice slam into him despite the distance, its rancid Kyyr spilling over the city in a crushing wave that smothered the rising chaos into muted silence. Thousands of citizens were knocked out due to their low-Kyyr efficiency.

His visage cracked with recognition. Cythrallis Empusae—the Hy'Kyyrian Vampyr. Bayren narrowed his gaze at the rising entity. Alvlad used to hire this thing to do his dirty work. Could he have sent it? No… He would've come himself. Then who sent it? And why? Cythrallis is an aimless, fickle thing—from what I understand, it works purely for its own amusement.

Bayren noticed the scorched bodies orbiting it in a slow, macabre circle. His demeanor darkened. Phagocytic Aureole… an infamously cruel—like mine.

Bayren parted his jaws. "It's been a while, Cythrallis. What brings one of Alvlad's old dogs here? Looking for a new master to hold your leash?"

No.

"⠠⠝⠕—though tell me, how does my old Lord fare? How is the king of everything these days?" Cythrallis warbled as it began drifting toward Bayren.

"He's being a lazy asshole like usual!" Bayren shouted back. "Who sent you, Cythrallis—what are your orders? If you tell me I'm willing to fill the Alvlad shaped hole in that red core of yours!"

"⠠⠓⠕⠺ ⠞⠑⠍⠏⠞⠊⠝⠛—but your edge has dulled. Still, I must admit… Even so, I won't deny it… I wanted to see the once infamous Calamity Codex playing the role of a scholar and father. ⠠⠓⠕⠺ ⠕⠙⠙⠲" Its mechanical voice shifted in and out of a disjointed warble, as entropy began to regress in the streets below.

Bayren scowled, his own jaws fracturing as his black scales split with an amber, molten glow. It ignored my question. And this father business… is it baiting for answers? He's definitely not referring to my direct children, so it has to be— He glanced down toward Lamia, who was slowly regressing backwards along with Rusk and the other people. If Lamia is out here, then so is Mera. But where? With this many victims, I can only regress things back so far… and I didn't even see the initial attack—regression will be unstable; it might cause anomalies. He tightened his stance, keeping his Kyyr leveled and controlled, his Calamity core churning like a burning engine inside his chest.

"Regression," Cythrallis warbled, lowering its Kyyr output just enough for Bayren to drag it further from the equilibrium of the future. "Such a tender ability for a man like you. The gift to mend, bestowed upon a Monster—⠠⠁⠃⠎⠕⠇⠥⠞⠑ ⠅⠕⠍⠑⠙⠽⠲" Its voice fractured again, and the orbiting human puppets began to laugh in its stead.

This bastard is going with the flow. It's using Regression to recover. He looked around at the cavern, the massive deep cuts very slowly recovering as the ice groaned. Can I fight this thing without causing a cave-in? And there's also the matter of how much it knows about my ability. Regression and Recreation aren't exactly secrets, but details of their function and parameters are. Does it know I can't use my constructs while regressing things? Does it know the range of the ability? Does it know of the death loops? His visage cracked. It'll get messy if it attacks anyone mid regression—it could jeopardize the entire Kyyr structure. A stray strike and everyone killed is gone for good.

"⠠⠟⠥⠑⠗⠽—how do events tied to me transpire if I'm removed?" Cythrallis questioned as it tore itself free from the regression.

Bayren didn't answer. He simply accelerated the regression.

"Intriguing," it hissed as it floated down and watched Pax rise from the ground, his neck erupting backwards through time as if Cythrallis's blade were still present. ⠠⠊⠞⠄⠎ ⠗⠑⠍⠕⠧⠑⠙⠲ ⠠⠙⠑⠝⠽ ⠞ it thought as it waited for Pax to fully heal—then stabbed him again, this time more gently, injecting another fragment of itself into him.

Bayren, still perched atop the recreated Carboxarax, looked on. What is it trying to accomplish? He attacked while I was in the depths. Was it planned—or a coincidence? Even so, why attack at all? The research here is nothing special, and the Carboxarax particularly outstanding megafauna in the eyes of ORPA. The only unique variable here is me. The damage to the harbor can be easily repaired, the lives taken recovered, but the memories will remain. I'll have to test its intentions. Massive chunks of ice and debris began to fly up, crashing into his calamity constructs.

Cythrallis weakened its Kyyr again, floating backward through time as volatile crimson energy reeled into its frame. A violent beam dragged itself in reverse, injecting Kyyr back into Cythrallis as fire churned and spiraled inward. The twisting Kyyr spat out clumps of flesh and metal, reconstructing Jack's mangled body piece by piece from the ashes.

"⠠⠞⠁⠗⠛⠑⠞ ⠠⠕⠗⠛⠁⠝⠊⠎⠍ ⠇⠕⠉⠁⠞⠑⠙⠲—Thanks." Cythrallis warbled as a dazed Jack looked into the red eye of Cythrallis, blades reconstructing blood spilling back into his system.

Jack began to scream, "WAIT LOR—"

CLLRCH!

A single blade tore into Jack. His eyes grew wide as he froze in a horrid moment of terror as Cythrallis, the Hy'Kyyrian Vampyr, waved around its new tool.

"⠠⠑⠝⠕⠥⠛⠓—It's time."" it warbled, lifting higher as its violent Kyyr spiked as regression stuttered.

Bayren watched the Hy'Kyyrian menace rise into the air, the number of orbiting probes multiplying, with one particular body making his rage shatter the scales across his face and neck as long molten fractures crawled down his body.

—Jack?!

Regression stopped.

Down below, Rusk looked up in terror as the world above him vanished into all-black. Instinctively, he covered Lamia, his feeble Kyyr waning as the surrounding Kyyr was consumed by the two titans overhead.

Calamity Constructs flooded the sky. Massive skulls—dragons, Stargliders, alien maws, giant hands, leviathan spines—erupted from the darkness, recreated into a monstrous shell protecting the entire city.

Cythrallis barely had time to react. Constructs burst from the darkness and hammered down at random angles, driving the Hy'Kyyrian away from the port. And hot on its trail followed more black constructs erupting from the debris in relentless pursuit.

SHRRRRRRK!

Cythrallis focused on the sound and erupting Kyyr.

From the darkness, grinding shrieked along the construct growths—sparks spraying like burning rain—as Bayren shot forward on a streak of fire, propelling himself straight toward Cythrallis.

Benny's Kyyr frantically activated—Cythrallis dragged itself to the side, Paul's skull erupting with not only his Kyyr but a crimson aura as vile Kyyr compressed itself. Jack's tentacles writhed as space bent around his neck, shredding his tentacles, creating a massive deep red accretion disk.

Bayren's Kyyr flashed. He pulsed it forward, halting his advance, the air exploding as flames hissed around him. His Kyyr expanded.

Recreation.

Cythrallis's orbiting blades twisted and spun, weaving between black recreations of themselves. Paul's churning skull flickered, releasing a compressed burst of crimson Kyyr that melted through the constructs as Kaela's Kyyr locked onto Bayren.

Bayren, wove through the air jumping from construct to construct as the orb chased after him. Cythrallis was clearly hired with me in mind. He smirked. I wonder how long it'll last before I break it.

Paul writhed again as his body began to compress Kyyr again. With him, a ranger that had been regressed back into existence shuddered as he too compressed Kyyr into a long crimson javelin.

Kaela convulsed on her probe as both the orb and the crimson javelin fired out, her Kyyr twisting them through the air—each one homing in on Bayren from a different angle.

Then another ranger rose screaming, their body weeping fluid as Cythrallis slammed them into the rushing water. The surface fizzled—and lightning erupted from the weeping ranger's body, streaking beneath the waterline to chase Bayren as he jumped back onto another construct, while the Hy'Kyyrian and its orbiting probes pursued close behind him.

His Kyyr vision locked onto the incoming barrage—blades, orbiting Kyyr, the crimson javelin—shredding through his construct as he vaulted upward, pulling every projectile into a single point beneath him while Kyyr lightning clawed up from below.

Bayren flipped mid-air, twisting into position as he leveled one finger at the converging attacks. Kyyr compressed—a crack shot down his fingertip.

Regression—feedback.

His Kyyr detonated, blasting the entire barrage backward through time!

Cythrallis's red orb warbled. "⠠⠊⠍⠏⠕⠎⠎⠊⠃⠇⠑!?" as it pulsed more Kyyr into the attacks, forcing only the flaming orbs and the crimson javelin to break free, the lightning and blades snapping back in time as one of its tools exploded.

Water sprayed as the compressed orbs slammed into Bayren. He twisted his body, minimizing the damage, and thrust a black construct wall behind him to keep the blast from ripping through the rest of the port.

Bayren was hurled back, the crimson javelin still streaking after him. His arms had been shredded by the blast—yet, like a Coarseblood, they regenerated instantly. Fiery Kyyr erupted from his jaws as he snapped forward and caught the javelin in his snout.

"Dull, am I? Then witness the edge you dismissed." Fire warped around his voice as Kyyr surged into the javelin, crimson burning into molten amber. With a swift, spiraling turn, he released it—sending the spear streaking back toward Cythrallis.

The javelin flew dead-on toward Cythrallis's core—Benny's Kyyr flashing a split-second warning. Cythrallis spun violently aside, the javelin ripping past and exploding far beneath the waves. A full second later, the sound hit—an earth-shaking BOOM!—just as a towering geyser of steam blasted upward, engulfing the port as the shockwave thundered across it.

Cythrallis's core wavered in the vibrating air as its blades compressed inward, glowing hot red. The joints snapped in rapid succession until the whole array locked into a needle-like blade cannon.

Bayren ignited Kyyr through his arms and legs—sharp concussive bursts propelling him like a living rocket. He blasted through the air in staccato flashes, twisting mid-flight, and detonated another burst to slam down onto a calamity construct, claws screeching across the forming rails.

Recreation.

Massive jaws of deep-sea leviathans erupted into being where Cythrallis flew. The Hy'Kyyrian twisted through the air, dodging as more colossal maws burst into existence in rapid succession while its Kyyr core continued to charge.

Paul's puppet-body writhed, compressing Kyyr—Todd's amplification swelling the orb to monstrous size as its red glow expanded, melting the ice around the harbor causing the water levels to violently rise!

Paul's body was flicked forward, sending the orb hurtling as Bayren jumped into the air, his claws fracturing as he aimed his Kyyr into the massive red sphere rushing toward him.

Regression— "COUNTERTURN!"

The fiery orb returned to sender.

The massive orb suddenly shot backward—and Jack's body rose from the charging rail cannon, his Kyyr spiraling as it swallowed the crimson mass, churning the fire as poor Jack's skin began to melt.

Beast of iniquity. Bayren's Kyyr surged as he landed on a construct railing, blasting himself forward as he chased after Cythrallis, who continued charging wave after wave of vile Kyyr into its self-made rail gun.

If it fires that thing in here… He glanced back toward the shore, a reckless idea igniting in his molten mind. I saw Mera and Pax back there… I wonder… He twisted the construct rail beneath his talons. Forgive me, sweet child. Bayren shifted position, lining himself up precisely with where Mera and Pax huddled beneath his protective constructs.

Below, the Hy'Kyyrian's processor groaned as it ascended—its cannon deliberately swiveling away from Mera's direction, locking onto Bayren from an undesired angle.

That all but confirms it… Bayren shook the thought away.

Cythrallis's core glowed bright as Bayren studied it in the fleeting seconds before it fired. His calamity core rolled like molten thunder, brain rifling through shot vectors, Kyyr flaring along his bones as he waited. He spotted his targets—six scorched forms pinned against its hull.

Just you wait, Jack.

Cythrallis darted through the air, gravity meaning nothing to it as it wove sharp zigzags overhead. Paul and the weeping ranger unleashed volleys of compressed Kyyr, hammering Bayren's sprawl of black construct rails that littered the harbor like tangled strands. The blasts hit hard—but to Bayren, each attack was telegraphed, predictable. His molten cracks widened as he held for the perfect second.

"⠠⠇⠕⠁⠙ ⠠⠁⠎⠎⠑⠎⠎⠍⠑⠝⠞⠒—BAYREN!" Cythrallis roared from above. "Avoid this attack and the city is annihilated! Go on—test me. Or follow my directive… and sit still." It warbled, voice tilting into psychotic glee.

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Bayren stopped in his tracks, the constructs beneath him rising to form a platform. His shattered gaze locked onto the compounding mass of Kyyr above. It's a bluff. Obviously. But… hah… best not assume. What is it after? Killing me? No… Cythrallis has worked for Alvlad before. It should know how resilient we are. So what then? What's the angle? What's the fun in this? His jaws tightened, snout fracturing into sharper, hotter pieces. Mera. Lamia. It's putting them in danger. Is it on purpose? Or is it being sloppy? No… no, this reeks of intent. A misdirection? The Kyyr above continued to amass—waves rupturing ice as water cascaded from above. His Kyyr receptors flared at the faintest shift in energy. He raised a hand, a twitch cracking across his cheeks before blooming into a thin, deranged smile. Whatever it is—it doesn't matter. Soon enough… I'll peel open that metal head of its and get all my answers.

"But first… let's take its toys away," Bayren whispered as he seized the fleeting instant Cythrallis hesitated.

Time slowed as the Kyyr cannon ignited—crimson and monstrous. The beam exploded straight down into Bayren, consuming him in a pillar of blistering light. Shockwaves ruptured the air, shattering parts of his constructs as the city shuddered beneath the impact. Sheets of ice crashed down across the black shell.

But right before it hit—

Recreate—Regress— "FLASHBACK!"

Bayren roared as the crimson light crashed into him, the rippling force driving him downward. The concentrated laser hurled him through the water, then ice—kilometer after kilometer—before ejecting him violently into the endless, lightless abyss of the Himadri super-ocean.

Break…

Floating in the black nothingness of the cold ocean, Bayren's half-melted body slowly reconstructed itself as he began to rise from the depths. All around him, the incredibly immense silhouettes of Carbotitrax and Carboxarax schooled in massive sweeping arcs, drawn to the heat. Their eerie bodies drifted around him, swimming through the dark as Bayren smiled wide.

Bubbles erupted from his jaws as he pulsed his Kyyr outward.
"I HAVE WITNESSED IT!" he roared, shooting up from the depths in a swelling crimson bloom as he regressed back against entropy.

Far above, Cythrallis convulsed in the air, its biomechanical systems in absolute chaos.

CONFUSION.

"⠠⠙⠁⠍⠁⠛⠑ ...WHAT ⠉⠗⠊⠞⠊⠉⠁⠇⠲ ...⠠⠉⠕⠛⠝⠊—SYSTEM SCATTER—⠤⠑⠎⠉⠁⠇⠁⠞⠊⠝⠛⠲ ...⠠⠏⠗⠕⠞⠕⠉⠕⠇ ⠊⠝⠞⠑⠛⠗⠊⠞⠽—FAILING⠲ ...⠠⠝⠑⠥⠗⠁⠇ ⠉⠕⠗⠑ DESTABILIZING—WHAT—THE—FUCK—HIT—ME?!" Each syllable cracked like a dying engine coughing blood.

Part of its body had been obliterated—half its tools torn apart, its core barely holding together as it screeched in agony. The core spun violently while several of its bladed tendrils twisted inward, melting into the crimson nucleus as the Hy'Kyyrian forced its shattered frame to slowly repair.

You see—

In the brief instant the Hy'Kyyrian paused to fire, Bayren activated Recreation. Cythrallis dodged effortlessly… or so it believed. However, that single moment of stillness was enough.

Regression triggered.

As a result, the Hy'Kyyrian's body snapped backward in time, slamming into the constructs that—moments later—would have already been broken. But at that precise temporal coordinate, they still existed. And they held.

Bayren repeated the sequence.

A second Recreation.

This time, Benny's Kyyr flared—alerting Cythrallis and forcing another dodge.

But once more, Regression activated.

For a second time the Hy'Kyyrian was pulled backward—into a different set of constructs, reconstructed from an earlier frame of the timeline. This maneuver—this Kyyr sleight of hand—was only possible because of one crucial factor: Cythrallis's own massive Kyyr discharge had overloaded its receptors, dulling its ability to perceive the faint temporal distortions triggered by Regression.

It had been blind to the twisting reality. And so, in the wake of these compounded reversals, Cythrallis lost three of its tools: Paul, Kaela, and the weeping ranger.
Now only Jack, Todd, and Benny remained—suffering in orbit around their screeching captor.

Crrmmmbl…

Several of Bayren's calamity constructs began to crack under the waves of Kyyr—black shells splitting open just enough for a dazed Pax to peek through. The port had been reduced to ruin; the Stargliders that hadn't already sunk were being dragged toward a massive pit yawning straight into the sea. The water churned violently, a vortex forming as it pulled the Nordos Starglider toward its spiraling maw.

"No…" Pax whispered, struggling in place. He managed to spark his Kyyr, pushing weakly against the crumbling constructs with everything he had, but—

It was for naught.

As a black construct shell suddenly snapped backward through time smacking him in the face, causing him to bleed, as he failed to regress.

Cythrallis felt itself suddenly being torn from the inside out. Its garbled screams creaked and screeched as its body unraveled—every microfiber and metal cell ripping apart before weaving itself back together. Even its puppets reconstituted, dragged back from the burning hellscape of its own Kyyr.

IMPOSSIBLE!

"⠠⠓⠕⠺?!" its voice warbled violently—before its own violent Kyyr recoiled and forced itself back into its body. "⠠⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠁⠛⠓⠦!!!"

Kyyr crashed back into every fiber of its frame, searing through its systems as it fought against the rising heat. And before it could process what was happening—

CRASH!

Its single red orb was sent flying into the ceiling as the water began to regress—surging upward in reverse, slamming into the orb and freezing over the bewildered Hy'Kyyrian.

From the murky fathoms below, Bayren emerged on a pillar of crimson radiance, his shattered chest split open around a Calamity Core that beat like the heart of a fallen star. With every deep thrum of energy, the world rippled torn away from destined equilibrium.

Regression—Feedback.

Bayren had a wild smile on his face. "I'd forgotten this feeling!" He shouted molten tongue salivating Kyyr that hissed off his teeth. He dropped back onto the same construct platform as before, his Kyyr pulsing loud and vile through the air.

Cythrallis could only watch helplessly from within the ice as its blades regressed backward through time without their core. Explosions rippled across the battlefield, black Kyyr-whip constructs lashing in every direction as the ice froze over and over layers upon layers as human and Diodecian life was woven back through time and into the present.

Bayren pointed at Cythrallis as a reconstructed dragon's hand tore the red orb free from the ice and dragged it helplessly into his waiting grasp. "I might be less active than bastards like Mytir or Alvlad, but it's best if you remember your place." He said with malice as he flicked the red orb back into the ceiling.

Cythrallis shrieked—rage and broken syllables roaring from its frame—as it pulled its blades back around its body. But to its horror, none of its tools remained in its grasp. Kyyr flashed violently across the docks as fire erupted and then receded—screams collapsing back into idle chatter while rangers and dockworkers reverted to their final moments before the attack.

Bayren glanced at the growing crowd. Many of them still lay motionless—expected, given the strain of Regression. But what caught his attention were the ones still standing.

At the farthest dock, two simple dockworkers clutched warm thermoses, staring slack-jawed but unmistakably alive. A lonely man warmed his hands as tears fell down his face. A woman crying beside her two slumbering friends. And at the center of the port, rising above the confusion, stood a Diodecian with a Flapjack Octopus head—gazing at Bayren in pure awe.

Bayren smirked as he turned to face the confused Hy'Kyyrian that had been almost completely repaired.

"⠠⠉⠕⠝⠋⠥⠎⠊⠕⠝—Why did you repair me too?" It warbled in confusion.

Bayren face shattered into a deranged smile. "So you'd die slower."

Cythrallis Empusae was finally reminded of what it was facing. In all its years under Alvlad Astralar, the Hy'Kyyrian had regarded Calamity Entities as little more than curiosities. It had never bothered with the "boring" old Family Heads. It knew they were strong—dangerous, even—but in a thousand years of work it had never once been hired to hunt one. Now it understood why. Even in the face of Bayren, the creature had grown so far from its biological roots that the instinct of fear had long since withered. Until now. Because in that moment—staring into the gaping abyss of the molten jaws of Calamity—it felt fear. Pure and pathetically normal fear, like a child caught in the jaws of a dragon.

"⠠⠺⠓⠽—Why didn't you kill me earlier?" it warbled, pulling back slightly.

"I was curious," Bayren answered, "and worried for the weak souls that live here. But as time went on, the threshold for saving lives got further and further away." His gaze hardened. "I was simply waiting for the opportunity to get our sweet Mayor back." He gestured over at Jack with his snout. "So I'll ask again—who sent you?"

"If I answer," Cythrallis warbled, "will I be free to leave?"

Bayren lowered his Kyyr. "Sure."

Without hesitation, Cythrallis replied. "It was Vaund—Poltheris Vaund. He hired me to retrieve his daughters."

"Ha? What?" Bayren's head snapped up. "Vaund has daughters? Here? Like one of the octopus chicks walking around? That's why you slaughtered all these people?"

The red orb glimmered as its blades compressed into a skeletal almost humanoid form around itself. The spindly creature clung to the cavern's icy ceiling, trembling with some mix of fear and instinct.

Bayren stared up at it, thoughtful. Daughters? Diodecians are hard to miss, especially those bearing the head of the Kraken like Vaund. I thought he was targeting me… or my kids… but this? What? There's a council meeting with the Seven Diodecian Kings in a couple years. I could wait for that… but what if they attack again? Then what…?

Cythrallis began crawling toward the Translate Gate, claws clattering against ice as it surged toward freedom, when—

Recreation.

The Hy'Kyyrian erupted from the inside out, its body shattering into nothing as a charcoal-black reconstruction replaced its place on the ceiling.

Bayren watched the construct crack, its skeletal frame disintegrating into a fine black dust as he watched apathetically. "The pathetic roach died instantly…" Bayren sighed. "That was far less satisfying than I'd hoped. 'Can I be free to leave' —fucking stupid Hy'Kyyrian dog." He hissed the last words as the construct platform beneath him began to drift back toward the shore.

There were dozens of people crying because 257 workers, 138 rangers, and 87 civilians, including 12 children, never woke up again.

But unbeknownst to Bayren, buried in the ice, a lone red fragment stared down in defiance. Frozen in place like an ember caught mid-fall, it watched Ámon Pax—who, thanks to his own Kyyr, had slipped past the Regression and hurt himself in the twisting entropy. Freezing his body in the moments after the Hy'Kyyrian had injected him with a precious shard composed of its own soul.

The fragment pulsed once, then tore itself free—sliding out of the ice and drifting downward, slipping beyond the Translate Gate before falling into the curved sea. There, tangled in a net tied to one of the outer port's legs, a lifeless orb rested in the dim water. The glimmering red light melded with the dead orb as the metal blades inside the net shuddered—then suddenly exploded into motion as Cythrallis emerged in its backup body.

It didn't linger.

Without even glancing back once the Hy'Kyyrian Vampyr vanished into the misty gray of the curved sea.

It rushed through the gray for days on end until another gate finally appeared. Here, the curved sea shifted to a light, almost translucent blue. The crashing waves of the depths were gone—replaced by warm, rolling waters. Even the sky mirrored the sea, a pale blue spiraling with fluffy white clouds that drifted along the arcing waterways. The Rip Translate hovered freely above a massive ivory edifice carved with images of marine life and Diodecian folk heroes. A warm deluge overflowed from the Translate Gate, its gentle stream cascading down onto a synthetic beach built atop a colossal superstructure that supported resorts, towers, and sprawling crystalline buildings. The Hy'Kyyrian compressed its frame down to its smallest configuration—still intimidating in silhouette, but far less noticeable among the crowds of Diodecians, humans, and countless other entities wandering the coast.

It traveled a practice path along the coral streets of the Translate side of the Port City of Felli, a well-known resort destination built at the threshold of the Rip Translate Streyshia.

The Hy'Kyyrian made its way through the streets as it approached the largest Translate side structure in the region. The palace of Poltheris Vaund, a Diodecian Prince. The palace guards recognized it immediately and ushered the Hy'Kyyrian through the gates, guiding it into the grand lobby. Inside, spheres of floating water drifted lazily through the air, shimmering among sea-themed sculptures and coral-glass lanterns. The guards led it to a special elevator crafted from ivory-coral, its interior lined with gold filigree and gentle blue lighting. The doors slid shut. As the elevator ascended; the Hy'Kyyrian tapped its claws impatiently against the golden railing, relaxed aquatic music playing softly all the way to the top.

Up above the Hy'Kyyrian, three shady figures were walking out of Vaund's throne room. Clearly bummed out. A man dressed head-to-toe in black, his entire face hidden behind an obsidian mirror-smooth mask, grumbled loudly.

"Aww, man… it really feels like we came all the way out here for nothing. Are you sure that tip was even credible?"

He jabbed an accusatory finger at the larger man beside him—who wore a coastal-themed shirt and shorts, yet inexplicably kept a fancy ivory helmet strapped to his head. A braided band of light brown hair spilled through an aperture in the back.

"Hey," the masked man said, irritation rising as he poked him hard in the ribs.

"Huh—what?" the ivory-helmeted man blinked, bouncing on his heels as he peered out the window toward the beach below. "What is it dear friend?"

"Dude! Was that sighting even real?!" the masked man demanded.

"It was," the helmeted man said with dramatic offense. "I swear upon my glorious lineage! You wound me with your doubt."

The masked man sighed, turning to the other man with him, on his face there was a pleased satisfied look as he looked at the numerous paintings of ships and marine wildlife.

"And what about you, Mr. Captain?" he said, with vexed sarcasm. "You look pretty damn happy about this stupid trip."

His crimson eyes looked at the masked man with disdain. "Huh? Stupid!? Dude—we're in freaking FELLI! You know—the edge of the Placid Curve and the JAWED SEA! How are you not excited?"

The masked pouted. "Because we came here to find…" he let out a long exasperated sigh. "You know what. Maybe we do need a break every now and then. I hope Suyi and Nyx found us a decent hotel. My back's still killing me from sleeping in that cramped little Seaglider."

"Cramped?" The crimson-eyed man seized him by the shoulder. "Ha? Cramped!? My 'Sea Surging Sydney' is a frontliner model. I'll have you know, you ignorant, angry little nerd—you're just mad I got to show off my awesome navigation skills. Classic Gir—"

THUD!

"⠠⠁⠉⠉⠊⠙⠑⠝⠞—Apologies," Cythrallis said, offering a metal hand to the man it had bumped. "We were in a hurry."

The crimson-eyed man took the Hy'Kyyrian's hand. "No worries, uh…?"

"Ah. I am Hy'Kyyrian—we're rather rare, so…"

"Oh! Wait, seriously? We know a Hy'Kyyrian," the crimson-eyed man said brightly. "But he looks nothing like you."

The man wearing the helmet turned from the window. "Indeed! You're far from our dear friend Nargaras."

Cythrallis stiffened. "You're… f-r-i-e-n-d-s with Nargaras?"

"Correct, dear Hy'Kyyrian, that Nargaras is a truly fascinating critter, don't you agree?" The ivory-helmeted man said with a laugh.

"...Indeed. Fascinating."

The masked man cleared his throat."Sorry about these two. You looked like you were in a hurry, so…"

"Yes. Send Nargaras my regards—from Cythrallis," the Hy'Kyyrian said politely, before walking past the odd trio and toward the doorway leading into the throne room of Poltheris Vaund.