Penelope’s blood roared in her ears, and she could feel her heart beating like a hammer within her chest. She glanced over at her father, feeling no small amount of anxiety and even a small amount of fear at where she was being taken.

After the revelations that Leon shared, Penelope had started to wonder if her father was more actively involved with the vampires and their demonic overlord than she ever might’ve imagined. At the very least, though, she could take comfort in knowing that her father wasn’t a vampire—his skin, while pale from spending most of his days inside, wasn’t quite as sickly as that of a vampire. What spoke more to his humanity was his heavily muscled body, which, combined with the grace with which the Director moved, showed Penelope that he was just as physically capable now as he was in her memory. He’d rarely felt the need to express his power, she knew, but in the decades since the last time his hand had been forced, he had clearly not let himself go soft. Besides, she knew that he wasn’t the sort to give up even the tiniest amount of his authority to another being, let alone a demon.

So, he wasn’t a vampire. Her worries were slightly mollified, but not entirely banished, for as Leon showed, someone with a demonic contract wasn’t necessarily a vampire.

These thoughts, and many more besides, raced through her mind as the Director opened an otherwise imperceptible door on the wall of his office and led her through several private hallways. Eventually, he led her into a large chamber, empty save for a small, extremely sleek ark. It was long and narrow, and lacked the flat, angular wings that most other arks possessed. Its size would only allow a handful of people within, but Penelope knew from personal experience that there were only four or five arks elsewhere in the world that could possibly compete with it for speed and privacy.

Its entire exterior was shiny and almost perfectly reflective, made from a material that Penelope couldn’t identify. Even more notable, however, was that it didn’t require a pilot.

A door slid open on the side of the ark, which, much like the door in the Director’s office, had been entirely imperceptible until that moment. Without missing a step, the Director walked into the ark, and Penelope closely followed, her curiosity even more piqued at what exactly her father was going to show her.

The interior of the ark was quite small, with Penelope almost able to touch both walls if she outstretched her arms. There were only seven seats, with three on either side of the ark and a granite table between. The final seat was in the back, looking almost like a plush throne.

The Director made directly for that big seat, and when he sat within it, thousands of runes flashed out from the chair and covered the surface of the ark’s walls, vanishing less than a second later.

“Please, Penny, sit,” the Director said, indicating the seat directly on his right. In stark contrast to his usual commanding tone, he now sounded almost tired, and Penelope found herself relaxing a little more. As she took her seat, the ark’s door slid shut, sealing them within and creating an environment that was, for all intents and purposes, impossible to spy upon.

“Where are we going, father?” Penelope stiffly asked, still a little on-guard despite most of her fears being allayed.

“Not far,” the Director whispered. A runic circle on the arm of his chair flashed, and a strange, androgynous, highly resonant voice sounded throughout the ark.

“Destination?”

The Director answered, “The Arkyard. Pad seven.”

Penelope’s eyebrows immediately shot up; she knew that Heaven’s Eye had no arkyards!

Before she could say anything, however, the strange voice responded, “Shall the yard master be informed of your arrival?”

“No, let’s make this a surprise inspection.”

“Understood. Preparing for launch.”

The Director responded, “Engage all stealth systems. I don’t want a single person catching so much as a glimpse of us on our way.”

“Acknowledged,” the voice responded, and Penelope felt the slightest of shudders pass through the ark’s frame as its enchantments blazed to life. She knew from her few previous experiences flying in her father’s personal ark that the reflective exterior had just been covered in light magic, rendering the ark completely invisible.

This ark was a marvel of magical engineering. It wasn’t as old as the Thunderbird Clan, but from what she knew, it had been built from pieces of a Thunderbird ark during the wars that eventually formed the Empires, when the organization that would one day call itself Heaven’s Eye still possessed arkyards—or, she supposed, still officially possessed arkyards, if she were to believe what her father had just said.

The ark soon took to the sky, its magic engines engaging and seemingly propelling them toward the wall of the chamber. However, instead of crashing, the ark passed right through. The wall was nothing more than an illusion—an extremely powerful and convincing illusion protected from invasion by tremendously powerful wards, but an illusion, nonetheless. Combined with the ark’s own stealth capabilities, Penelope doubted anyone could possibly notice that she and the Director had left his office, let alone the Hexagon.

Once out of the Hexagon, the ark flew swiftly and silently, its robust enchantments ensuring that not a single soul outside of it could detect it. But the interior of the ark was somehow even quieter, with Penelope simply going along for the ride, her anxiety and curiosity warring within her and keeping her from asking questions.

The ark quickly built up speed, but it didn’t even reach as fast as it could go before it started to decelerate. There were no windows and the walls weren’t transparent, so Penelope was unable to say where they were. When the ark came to a smooth stop and the door opened several minutes later, however, she could say unequivocally that what was awaiting them was not what she’d been expecting.

They were underground, on a large magic lift that was slowly descending even further into the earth. But what they were descending into was hardly just a cave—the walls were certainly stone, but there were several long steel beams supporting the magic lift, and Penelope could sense an immense amount of magic power running through the walls.

Finally finding her tongue, she asked her father, “Where are we?”

The Director replied, “The project that has consumed most of my attention for the past few decades… Something that the Empires would kill for. Something that Lord Protector Anastasios would likely seize, if he knew about it, and quite possibly kill us all to ensure that no one else knew of its existence…”

Left unsaid were his orders to keep everything that she saw here a secret, but he didn’t need to say that part aloud.

After more than five minutes of descent, some of the walls in the circular lift finally fell away, revealing a much larger cavern greatly illuminated with bright white magical light. It took another half minute for the lift to reach the bottom of the cavern, and when it did, Penelope had to stifle a gasp.

They were on only one arkpad of seven, and the other six—three on either side of the rectangular cavern—all had arks of their own, and all of these arks were much larger than the Director’s. If she had to guess, the smallest of these other arks could hold several hundred people quite comfortably, depending on how spacious its interior was. The largest of the arks looked like it could hold many times more than that, and was so big, in fact, that it barely fit into the cavern. It was at least two thousand feet long, and shaped, Penelope thought, rather like that of a bird of prey—its prow was long and curved slightly downward, like a sharp beak, while its wings were slightly lifted and angled, giving off the impression of a sleek eagle in the midst of a dive.

She could see multiple closed ports on every side of the thing, many of which she could only assume were weapon ports. The rear of the ark, meanwhile, had some of the largest magical engines that she had ever seen.

This monster of an ark captured her attention, but as she took in the sheer scale of the cavern and all the other arks, she was rendered completely speechless, not only at the fact that it was here, but that such a massive facility even existed at all and that she’d never even heard of it.

It wasn’t until the Director rose to his feet and gently shook her shoulder that she came back to reality.

“I understand,” he said, his voice finally softening into something that was almost fatherly. “Most people who I reveal this to have similar reactions. I, myself, couldn’t help but stare when I first saw what my engineering teams had managed to achieve down here, too.”

“What…” Penelope murmured, stammering slightly as she tried to wrap her head around what her senses were telling her, “… what… what is all this?”

“Come with me,” the Director said, and he led Penelope out of his ark at a rather relaxed pace, letting her take in the sheer scale of the cavern and marvel at the feat of magical engineering that it demanded.

As they walked down the cavern’s central corridor toward a series of buildings on the opposite side, Penelope noticed that there weren’t that many people around. A few were scurrying about here and there, but for the most part, the cavern was almost creepily still and silent. She counted at the most only ten people per ark, not even one percent of the minimum she’d have thought such large arks would demand for maintenance crews.

“Father, what is all this?” she asked again as they passed the first pair of arks, which also happened to be the smallest at only about three or four hundred feet long.

“The keys to our future,” he replied. “Our means of getting off Aeterna.”

—

Penelope stared out at the cavern from the window of the conference room she found herself in. There were a number of buildings on the opposite side of the cavern from her father’s arkpad, and the one she now found herself in was the biggest, rising more than five stories off the floor of the cavern, yet not even reaching halfway to the ceiling. Still, it had an incredible view of the immense arkyard.

She and her father had been there for several hours already, and she’d been taken around to see all of the massive arks parked here, with the leaders of the teams assigned to maintain each ark as best as they could giving her and her father short updates on the progress of their restoration. It was during those talks that Penelope learned that this wasn’t a proper arkyard—at least, it wasn’t one where arks could be constructed. There also weren’t any more of these caverns stashed anywhere, these six arks were all that they had.

Or, at least, that was all her father admitted to having, but she trusted him in this.

All six of these arks were confirmed to be ancient, dating back to the reign of the Thunderbird Clan. They were not in usable condition, and in fact, while their interiors were largely accessible to the Heaven’s Eye teams, the arks’ critical systems were still sealed and inaccessible. Weapons, engines, main power, all were locked so tightly that even Heaven’s Eye, even in all the time that they’d had these arks, hadn’t been able to open the doors to those critical compartments.

The noncritical systems were under their control, however, so while they couldn’t get the heavily armed arks to fly or shoot things, they could at least turn on climate controls, ventilation, and the lights.

Throughout this tour, Penelope remained quiet, the sheer scale of what she was seeing preventing her from asking any of the countless questions that came to her mind.

Now, however, that she’d had several hours to process the existence of this place, she felt ready to start asking some of those questions.

Her father was sitting at the head of the conference table, patiently waiting for her. No one else was in the conference room, not even the yard master, for speaking with them wasn’t the Director’s reason for coming here.

With a deep sigh, Penelope turned from the window and finally joined her father at the table.

“Ready to talk?” he asked, a light smile on his gracefully-aged face.

Penelope didn’t bother responding directly and simply jumped right in. “How long has all of this been here?”

“Some sixty years,” the Director answered.

“Only that long?”

“Only that long.”

Penelope took her father at his word. “How did they get here, then? Were they found here?”

“No. They’ve moved around a lot, but this is a place I built to house them. They are our greatest secret, one that the Empires can never learn about. It’s a secret that Heaven’s Eye has guarded for a long time. Do you remember my lessons about the Thunderbird Clan?”

“How could I forget?”

“Good. Do you remember what happened with most of their infrastructure?”

“Destroyed or appropriated by the Empires.”

“Indeed. However, most of the infrastructure built by that Clan was destroyed during the chaos of its fall. Some of the most valuable and practical structures, such as their massive arsenal, were completely obliterated by the Thunderbird forces that fled this plane when things became hopeless for them. Their arsenal happened to stand where Occulara does now.”

Penelope’s eyes widened in surprise, and she stared at her father in awe and wonder, which rapidly turned to bitterness and resentment.

“Have you already guessed what happened?”

Penelope nodded. “I have a guess, though if it’s right… The arsenal included the Thunderbird Clan’s arkyards?”

“Its primary arkyard, yes, and what a place it was, from what I understand. Massive arks capable of transporting tens or hundreds of thousands through the empty void between planes, and nearly all docked at their arkyards. It was completely ruined, as were almost all of the arks left there.”

“Almost,” Penelope emphasized as she jerked her head back toward the window.

“Almost,” the Director repeated with a smile. “The armies of Aeterna under the Brilliant Eleven took everything that they could salvage, but Heaven’s Eye—before it was Heaven’s Eye—managed to salvage these six arks and hide them away. We salvaged more, as I understand it, but all of that wound up being eventually discovered and confiscated by the Brilliant Eleven or their successors. All of those magical machines were either taken apart and reverse-engineered, were destroyed in the chaos of the wars that brought about the four Empires, or couldn’t be used and were squirreled away in places that not even I can find. These arks are all that we were able to hold onto throughout the countless years.”

Penelope frowned. “They’ve never been reactivated in all that time?”

“Most of the time, they’ve languished wherever they were stashed, quietly gathering dust, largely forgotten about. Some attempts to reactivate them have to have been made, but I couldn’t find any direct references to them—which, given how under wraps they were kept, makes sense to me. But in recent millennia, no attempts were made.”

“That clearly changed when you came to power…”

“Yes. I discovered these magnificent machines rotting away in several different hidden locations and began to expend my resources in ensuring that their secrecy was kept—I don’t want to get into it, but my predecessor didn’t know about these things, and I don’t think his predecessor did, either. I’m probably the first Director in a long time to actually pull these things out of their ancient storage.”

“Why? Wouldn’t they have been safer if never touched?”

The Director scowled; an expression that Penelope had rarely ever seen her father wear. It was an expression of deep resentment, regret, and even a bit of hatred.

“I don’t want to get into it, but the events that led me to the rediscovery of these arks very nearly exposed them to Imperial eyes. They had to be moved even if I had no personal desire to do so. So I began construction of this place, and moved these arks around until it was completed.”

“And you did all that without this place or these arks being exposed?”

The Director shrewdly smiled. “This place was built slowly, over the course of almost a century. Still, I’m sure the Empires had some inkling that I was up to something, but if they knew exactly what, they would’ve stormed in here and taken the arks without even a courtesy call to me, likely adding them to the Ilian collection of broken or ‘useless’ pieces they’ve retained from when they looted the Thunderbird arsenal for all that it was worth.”

Penelope studied her father, noting possible holes in his story that she wanted filled. “This place was finished sixty years ago,” she stated.

“Yes,” her father confirmed.

“The arks have been here all that time.”

“Yes.”

Penelope momentarily wondered just how the mammoth constructs had gotten here, but she guessed that a ninth or tenth-tier mage might’ve been able to move them, though if her ninth-tier father had done so, it couldn’t have been comfortable. Still, that issue was one she quickly put out of her mind.

She inquired, “What kind of resources did you direct to them?”

She guessed that her father knew where she was leading the conversation, and said, “Not many, in the beginning. I didn’t trust that many people. Even now, I could probably make much more headway in understanding just how to take control of these machines if I recruited more Heaven’s Eye enchanters, but the more people know, the most likely the secret is to get out.”

“But that changed recently…”

“Yes. Leon Raime’s arrival represents a great deal of potential not only for us, but for the Empires, as well. No one’s been able to activate these arks, not completely, not in any way that would matter. None of the dormant legacies that the Empires possess have been activated, either, which means they face similar issues that we do.”

“So you’ve been staffing up because Leon arrived down here? And looking into blood magic? Is that where the vampires come in?” Penelope’s voice slowly grew louder and more accusatory as she rapidly asked these questions, but she cut herself off before she was truly yelling.

The Director smiled bitterly. “There are no greater masters of blood magic than demons, and the vampires that serve them. I don’t know Leon that well, not even now. And he isn’t loyal enough to me to inspire much trust. But I want to reactivate these arks, and for that to happen, I’m positive that I need Leon’s blood, and to control the power within it.”

“But those vampires have to have been with us for longer than Leon has! I noticed that you were up to something before he even arrived!”

“I’ve been looking into this for a long time, child, as have the Empires. And we’ve all known about Leon for years, and that Leon would eventually make his way down here from those insignificant Kingdoms in the north. We all want to use what we have, and we’ve all prepared ways to do so.”

“So, what, you’re all going to fight over Leon? Just to activate your arks and whatever else you have? And even then, the question remains—at least, for you, father… Why? It can’t be political power, it can’t be a desire to dominate and build an Empire of your own… is it?”

The Director paused a moment. “No,” he answered. “I’ve never felt the need to be an Emperor. My dreams have always lain… outside of Aeterna, among the wonderous stars and the mysteries they represent. As an Emperor, I would have nothing that I don’t already have. It is beyond the edge of this plane that novelty lies, and that is what I want to see.

“As for Leon, I like him well enough, but I don’t want to fight over him. The vampires and their expertise were meant to allow me the ability to use these arks without Leon’s direct assistance, to take a little bit of blood and possibly use that as the key to reactivate these arks. Failing that, the vampires’ demons promised to teach me how to bypass those bloodline locks, if need be. This is what I want, child. To reactivate these arks and get away from Aeterna. Leave them to their petty problems and see what else the universe can offer. Perhaps even achieve Apotheosis without the Emperors breathing down my neck, considering me a potential enemy…”

The Director trailed off, and the conference room was plunging into silence.

“Would you…” Penelope hesitantly began, “… would you choose those vampires over Leon? Over even trying to win him over more securely to your side? What have they provided so far that has been so critical that you’d be willing to give up on having Leon in Heaven’s Eye to keep getting it? And I mean in a practical sense, not just promises from distant demons…”

“The vampires and their demons taught us how to partially reactivate the arks,” the Director explained. “It is because of them that we’ve managed to gain as much control over the arks as we’ve managed to achieve. They displayed their competence, and I trust them marginally more than I trust Leon. Moreover… I can’t be certain that Leon won’t just take these arks if he discovers them and they react to him. To have this chance at freedom swiped out from under me… is a risk that I would rather not take.”

“Perhaps it isn’t a risk?” Penelope offered. “Leon is pretty straightforward, and if you bring him in on this, he’d probably be more than willing to help.”

“I don’t trust that.”

“But you trust the vampires not to try and do the same? Or to screw you over in other ways?”

“No.”

“And yet, you’re still choosing them over what could be a better option?”

“I’ve not made a decision, yet. Leon will be heading north for a while, and the vampires can have their chance to prove themselves able to reactivate these arks. If they can’t, then I’ll revise my plans. Regardless of how it happens, I will get away from this restrictive plane! I will make sure that I achieve immortality! And child…” The Director reached over the table and took one of Penelope’s hands. “… I want you to come with me. I… know that I haven’t been that great of a father, but you still mean the world to me, and I want you in on this. When these arks are finally brought under my control, I want us to leave this plane behind and to face whatever may come together, as father and daughter.”

Penelope didn’t pull away from her father, but neither did she immediately agree. She glanced back out at the arks, and then at her father’s hand covering her own. She thought about Leon, how she’d treated him over the past decade, and how he, in turn, had treated her, especially during the hunt.

“I… need some time to process all of this,” she whispered.

“I understand,” the Director replied as he withdrew his hand. “No matter what happens, my dear, you will always be daughter, and I will support you in whatever you want to do, for as long as I can. But… please…”

“You want me to keep this from Leon?”

“Yes. When I reveal this to him… If I reveal this to him, it’ll be much later, at a time of my choosing.”

Penelope glanced out the window once more, wondering just what she should say to Leon.

“At the very least, father, can you give me anything about these vampires? Leon is furious, and if not for them, he would’ve been much more willing to join your endeavors, I think. But now, the vampires have gotten between you and him. Maybe they even did that deliberately…”

“There’s always that possibility. For all that I know and for all that I can control, I don’t know what they’re playing at.”

“I’d prefer if you got rid of them. As… problematic as Leon can be, he’s still better than those filthy swamp leeches.”

The Director didn’t immediately respond, and Penelope didn’t say anything for a long time, simply letting the silence awkwardly hang in the air.

But finally, the Director let out a quiet groan of frustration and anger, something she’d never heard her father do before.

“I suppose I can’t just stay neutral in all this, letting them fight it out amongst themselves. I have to choose a side between Leon and the vampires. Leon… or the demons…”

He went quiet for another long moment before continuing.

“I’ll have my answer by the time Leon returns from the Sacred Golden Empire. I’ll give no answer until I’ve properly weighed my options, and ultimately, my answer will be with whoever can give me and Heaven’s Eye the most benefits.”