“What’s wrong, Leon?” Cassandra asked teasingly, smiling rather smugly at Leon as they waited on the bridge for the Grand Druid to arrive. With Leon in control of the ark, they’d gotten the rest of the ark open, allowing everyone that had been teleported away to finally make their way back. They hadn’t yet arrived, however, and the rest of Leon’s retinue were still off seeing to their respective tasks.

Leon wasn’t feeling that great about the expedition, having not found much of anything within the ark. Given the extent of its damage, he didn’t think he was missing out on much, but it still hurt just a bit that this wasn’t that great of an opportunity for salvage—at least, not the sort that he was able to conduct.

That feeling must’ve been showing on his face, leading to the Princess’ question.

Leaning in a little more and giving him an even more playful look, Cassandra added, “Feeling down that there wasn’t anything here for you to steal out from under us?”

Leon gave her a sardonic smile. “How much is it considered stealing? No one formally signed this ark over to your Empire, did they?”

“It’s implied with your agreement with my grandmother,” the Princess said. “You’re giving up all claims to anything and everything on Aeterna in return for us not enacting vengeance upon you. Isn’t that right?”

Leon shrugged, unbothered by the Princess’ flippant and rather provocative tone. “So it is. So it is.”

“Sounding a little bitter there, lightning boy, aren’t you?”

Leon’s smile flickered. “’Lightning boy’? Where did that come from?”

“From my head. Just wanted to know what’s got you feeling so down.”

“And why do you think I’m feeling down?”

“Because you stopped talking as soon as that schematic came up, and you looked like someone kicked your puppy. Doesn’t take a genius to put the two together.”

Leon shrugged again. “My disappointment towers above all other emotions right now. It is the titan within me, crushing all hope and wonder, demanding that I yield to reality.”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Was just hoping for at least some reminder of what my Clan once was and what we could be again.”

“Conquerors?”

“Planar travelers. Kings in the Nexus. Gods among mortals. That kind of stuff.”

“You’re surprisingly arrogant, you know that?”

“I’d say the same about you, but Royalty is allowed to be prideful, aren’t they?”

“They are, such is our privilege.”

As they spoke, footsteps could be heard approaching the bridge. With all the doors open and the security enchantments down, magic senses could be used within the ark, allowing Leon to see essentially everything that was going on if he so wished. He’d been more lost in thought, however, and so it came as a bit of surprise when Gaius came in carrying the broken golem-body of Nestor.

Leons sprang to his feet, shock writ large upon his face.

“What happened?” he demanded.

Gaius, looking suitably uncomfortable, explained, “The golem… it was attempting to fix something in the power room, but the room was unstable and a lot of heavy equipment fell on it. It was an accident.”

Leon’s fury swiftly overtook his disappointment, but it was soundly tempered when Gaius, disguising it by adjusting his hold on the main part of Nestor’s golem frame, made a quick Legion ‘all-clear’ signal.

Leon frowned, but he refrained from letting his anger go wild. And, upon a little more in-depth inspection, he realized that while Nestor’s body was out of power, most of the damage seemed confined to the body’s extremities. The torso, where Nestor’s ruby was stored, seemed largely undamaged, save for a few dents and burns–though its head was nowhere to be seen.

Quickly descending the terraces, Leon and Cassandra met Gaius at the foot of the stairs, and Gaius handed Nestor’s body over. Leon quickly confirmed his initial inspection, sighed a little more dramatically than might’ve been necessary, and pulled Nestor’s body into his soul realm.

“I’ll deal with this later,” he growled, but coming from his soul realm, he heard the voice of his kinsman resound in his ears.

Ugh, can’t believe I’m back here. Degrading.

Shut your fat face, dead man, Xaphan crackled.

Ah, the foul-mouthed demon. I did not miss you, though I’ll admit the chance to speak with my Honored Ancestor again has me feeling excited.

Speaking up, Leon asked, Nestor, we’ll speak more later, but is everything all right?

Yes, boy. I just needed an excuse to get back in here. We need to talk, and you were refusing—for good reason—to do so until we returned to the lab.

And your body?

Easily replaced, and with something better. What I found, and what your man stashed in my chassis, is worth a little deception.

Leon fought to keep the smile off his face. With Nestor’s ringing endorsement about what they found, Leon glanced at Gaius and saw his retainer standing respectfully off to the side, his face impassive though with a certain glint of pride in his eye.

“Good job,” he said, making sure to keep a little bitterness in his voice, though as he ran his fingers through his hair, he made a quick ‘all-clear’ gesture, too. Turning back to Cassandra, he said, “I hope your people are able to find some good stuff here. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather leave as soon as possible, even if it’s just back to Evergold. I think this place has taken enough of my time.”

Cassandra frowned a bit but nodded. “I suppose we won’t need you, anymore,” she said. “We can let the others take over from here. Steph, I know, will be dying to see this…” Her frown turned up a bit into a more provocative smile, and Leon had to fight not to rise to the challenge.

Unable to entirely stop himself from giving in, he asked, “I thought he wasn’t a concern of mine? Going to be giving him a chance, then? Is your grandmother going to be disappointed?”

“Yes,” a loud voice shouted from the doorway, “am I?”

Cassandra about jumped out of her skin as she spun around to see the Grand Druid standing in the doorway, the small team of engineers behind her trying hard not to look like they were listening in too closely. Since the Grand Druid was standing in the doorway, however, they couldn’t just pass her by without showing disrespect, so they were forced to stand behind her and look awkward as all the hells.

“We can talk about that later,” Cassandra emphatically insisted.

The Grand Druid gave her a long, searching look, and eventually said, “Fine. For now, Leon, I’d like to discuss what happened. How were we separated?”

“Hard for me to say, really,” Leon replied as the Grand Druid finally entered the bridge proper, allowing the engineers, all of whom were practically chomping at the bit, to finally spill into the room from behind her. “It looked like teleportation, and my retainer told me that some kind of security system was tripped when in the engine room.”

“True enough,” one of the engineers corroborated, whom Leon recognized as one of the two who’d been sent off with Gaius and Nestor. “The golem of yours was messing around in a control console—”

The engineer was silenced by a sharp glare from the Grand Druid, and she sheepishly looked away and scuttled back to work.

“It seems to have been an accident, then,” the Grand Druid slowly stated, enunciating every word. “For now, Leon, if you wish to return to Evergold, I can make that happen. Cassandra, would you be a dear and accompany him back home?”

“Sure thing, Grandmother,” Cassandra replied with altogether far too much sweetness. She grinned at Leon, and he briefly wondered if leaving a little sooner would be worth whatever the Princess might be planning.

—

Leon breathed a sigh of relief as he and his retainers returned to their quarters in Evergold’s Imperial Palace. He’d dismissed Gaius as soon as they returned with what he hoped was the unspoken understanding that there would be a more in-depth briefing upon their return to Occulara.

As he gingerly lowered himself into a sofa, Valeria to his right and Maia to his left, he cast himself into his soul realm. Cassandra had demanded his attention almost the entire way back from the supercarrier, preventing him from holding a conversation with Nestor about what had been found or what had happened. Now that he was back and he had a few minutes, however, he dove straight in to get the events of the day sorted out.

Upon opening his eyes in his Mind Palace, he was surprised to see the Thunderbird herself upon her perch, idly preening her feathers.

“Ancestor,” he respectfully stated.

“Leon,” she said as she pulled her beak out of her feathers. Her tone indicated that, if she were human, she would’ve been smiling. “How did you find the ark you just explored?”

Leon grinned. “A magnificent ruin.” He briefly glanced at Nestor’s broken golem body, noting that it had been propped up on the table that the dead man’s ruby had once been placed upon, whereas Leon had left him in a somewhat more dignified position close to a set of small golem construction cranes. The front of Nestor’s body had been lightly scorched and looked partially melted.

Before he could explain himself further to the Thunderbird, he glared questioningly at Xaphan, quietly burning in his pavilion.

The dim shadow of the demon within his perpetual flames merely shrugged.

“Leon!” Nestor shouted from his frame, taking away any momentary concern Leon had that Xaphan had destroyed the dead man’s magic body. “It’s about time! We have to talk!”

Leon’s grin widened a bit. “In a moment.”

The Thunderbird chirped in amusement in a manner almost uncannily like human laughter. “Tell me my Clan’s glorious construct,” she demanded, her eyes so alight with delight that they practically flashed with golden lightning.

Leon summoned a chair and jumped right in. “Epic in scale, elegant in design, and so far beyond me in complexity that I couldn’t even comprehend it.”

“You say that as if such a thing is an accomplishment!” Xaphan called out. Leon and the Thunderbird ignored him, though one of Leon’s eyes twitched in transient anger.

“I was… frustrated when Nestor told me of the complexity of arks, especially the larger ones that were capable of traversing the Void. Now that I’ve seen the inner workings of several, it’s clear to me that… as much as it pains me to admit, he was right.”

“Take it as a lesson not to doubt those who know better than you!” Nestor shouted.

Leon shrugged.

“It’s good to get perspective,” the Thunderbird said. “Now you know how far you have to go.”

Leon nodded. “Speaking of which… Nestor, we need to break words about what happened in that ark.”

“That we do, boy, that we do.”

Leon gave his Ancestor one last respectful nod, which she reciprocated—though her head nod wasn’t as deep—and made his way over to Nestor.

“First off, old man, what in the hells happened to your body?” Leon demanded. “Significant financial resources were poured into its creation, how did it get in such a state?”

“It was by design,” Nestor unashamedly replied. “Let’s start at the beginning, I would rather not jump around.”

Leon waved his hand, telling the man to proceed.

“By your order, Gaius and I left to examine the engines. As we discussed before coming here, I was to try and find some way to cause a distraction, allowing you to explore as you pleased, so long as any distractions made weren’t life-threatening.”

“You tested the limits of that restriction,” Leon drily stated.

“I know what I’m doing, which is quite a bit more than I can say about you most of the time.”

Leon frowned. “Fair,” he said. “That’s fair.”

“While I’m not too familiar with the security systems of military arks,” Nestor continued, “I was well aware of the supercarrier’s teleportation enchantments. They’re standard for arks of that size, though rarely used for any but the most highly-ranked officers to get around, and in a particularly violent situation, to control those on board. But it costs a lot of power.”

“And you noticed it in the engine room of all places?” Leon asked, seeking clarification.

“I saw the signs that this system was still operational all over the ark,” Nestor corrected. “It was in the engine room that I saw an opportunity to trigger it. It was easy enough to gain access to the system, set rough targets, and let the ark’s remaining wisps go to work.”

“The ark had wisps?” Leon all but shouted in surprise. Of all the pieces of potential salvage that he might’ve taken from that ark, wisps ranked near the top.

“Had wisps. In pretending to ‘fix’ some of the consoles that were supposed to operate the engines, I was able to direct these wisps to send the rest of the expedition somewhere safe.”

“You missed one,” Leon observed.

“Cassandra was standing too close to you to exclude, and my window of opportunity was closing. I figured you wouldn’t mind her tagging along.”

“Quite the assumption. You’re lucky you guessed rightly.”

“Saying it was a ‘guess’ would imply that I didn’t know for sure. If you weren’t quite so obviously taken with each other, it would’ve been more uncertain. As it was, I left nothing to chance.”

Leon clicked his tongue in annoyance but said no more on the topic.

“Unfortunately,” Nestor continued, “the use of all that power further damaged the ark. I was able to mask it as the engines firing up, but the power supply of the ark was nearly drained, with all of its stored magic power ravaging the ark. There’s likely significantly less to be salvaged within that hulk now than there was.”

Leon frowned a moment but nodded in appreciation. He supposed it was better for something so powerful to be destroyed if he couldn’t claim it, though he also supposed that the scale of destruction it could potentially cause was something the Empires were already capable of doing, so it hardly mattered.

Regardless, his more prideful side found some comfort in further denying the Sacred Golden Empire access to the supercarrier, though he knew it to be hypocritical and potentially self-destructive.

“And then you two linked back up with us,” Leon said, picking up as Nestor paused a moment.

“Yes. Given I was forced to miss Cassandra, there was little time to waste to return if we wanted to avoid suspicion.”

“Failed in that respect,” Leon murmured.

“Blame yourself for that, not me.”

Leon shrugged again.

“So. Wisps. Your broken body. These things happened after you and Gaius left the second time. Tell me about that.”

“I took Gaius with me to find the wisps,” Nestor explained. “He was most useful in planning out our course of action after I explained our dilemma.”

‘Sounds like I have to reward him, then,’ Leon thought.

“When we reached our destination, I found three wisps were still intact, including one of the most valuable wisps we had: one that maintained our navigational systems!”

One of Leon’s eyebrows rose in intrigue, though he wasn’t exactly jumping out of his skin in excitement.

“That does sound tasty,” he said, “but how useful could it be for us?”

“Ugh. Children,” Nestor grumbled, and Leon had to fight the urge to light his already battered chassis on fire. “Listen, boy, the number of planes under the control of our Clan was immense. Counting both those directly owned and those administered by vassals, we had many thousands of planes belonging to us. Millions paid us tribute. The scale of the universe is immense, even for a post-Apotheosis mage. Having a dedicated wisp to handle navigation within the Void is not only incredibly valuable, it’s also incredibly rare. Such powerful wisps aren’t easily created and they’re jealously guarded. They require ungodly amounts of power to function properly, such that only Anakes or Elemental Kings are usually strong enough to make them.”

Leon’s other eyebrow rose as he started to get a better idea of what Nestor had.

“Where is that wisp?” Leon asked. “And the other two?”

“After locating them, Gaius and I decided that we had to secure them. I refused to allow Gaius to take them into his soul realm, so the decision was made to hide them within me. For added security, I had Gaius damage my body, giving you the perfect excuse to take me into your soul realm, where the wisps would be safe.

“Open my chest, Leon, the wisps are here with me.”

Leon licked his lips as he approached the broken form Nestor had built for himself. There were a few small tools needed to open the golem’s chest, but Nestor had included a small compartment in his back where those tools could be stored. Leon, having helped to build Nestor’s previous body, had his current one open in just a few minutes.

Once it had been opened, Leon was treated to the sight of countless tiny rings made of stone, steel, and glass, all covered in runes and all spinning around in Nestor’s body, aligning their enchantments as needed to keep Nestor’s body functioning. Many of them had gone dark with the breaking of Nestor’s extremities, Nestor’s body automatically cutting power to them to increase efficiency.

Where Nestor’s heart would be was where his ruby was stored, glowing red in a small container of enchanted glass. Nestled in the container with him were three small tubes, each no larger than his index finger, looking like they were made of some kind of golden metal. In the center of these tubes was a glass window, through which golden light was spilling forth.

“Containers for wisps,” Nestor informed him. “Made of Lumenite, making them almost indestructible. Such containers aren’t needed for wisps, but when it came to our most powerful war machines, we spared not a single expense.”

Leon carefully extracted the wisps from Nestor’s chest cavity, almost reverently laying them down on a folded silk sheet he’d retrieved from deeper in his soul realm. He could sense immense power within each of those Lumenite tubes, such intense concentrations of lightning magic that he hadn’t seen anywhere until he’d found the Iron Needle.

“Well,” he muttered. “Aren’t these something…”